Active and passive voice
Love it or hate it.
Active and passive voice
English grammar has two voices – active and passive. The voice determines the verb’s position in a sentence. The verb’s position is important because it helps convey your intended meaning. The active and passive voices confuse many writers, even native English speakers.
In an active voice sentence, the actor performs the verb. So, the active voice emphasises the actor that performs an action. By contrast, in a passive voice sentence, the target receives the action. The passive voice emphasises the action’s target.
Active voice sentences use this structure: actor + verb (+ target).
Passive voice sentences use this structure: target + verb (+ subject).
In active voice sentences, the target is optional. In passive voice sentences, the subject is optional.
The voice is a stylistic choice, but in most situations most people refer the active voice. Active voice sentences are typically strong, direct, and clear. Passive voice sentences are typically weak and ambiguous. Generally, the active voice helps clarify your sentence’s meaning and the passive voice obscures your sentence’s meaning. However, when used appropriately, the passive voice can be more effective than the active voice. Depending on the context, you could you both voices in the same content. In fact, you could use active and passive voice in the same sentence.
In this article, we’ll explore when you should use active and passive voice.
Active voice
In active voice sentences, the actor is doing something. Active voice positions the actor before the verb and emphasises the actor who performs an action. In other words, the actor is the star of the sentence. You should use the active voice when the actor is important and you want to write clear, strong, and direct sentences.
Example 1
Consider this active voice sentence and its passive voice alternative.
| Active voice | Passive voice |
|---|---|
| The dog licked his ballsack. | The ballsack was licked by the dog. |
In this example, the active voice sentence is better than the passive voice sentence. The active voice makes this sentence more concise and direct. The passive voice sentence is unnecessarily wordy. Both sentences probably made you uncomfortable, the passive voice sentence more so.
In the active voice sentence, the actor the dog performs the verb licked on the target his ballsack.
In the passive voice sentence, the target the ballsack receives the action was licked by the actor the dog.
Example 2
| Active voice | Passive voice |
|---|---|
| The puppy and orangutan established an unlikely friendship. | An unlikely friendship has been established by the puppy and orangutan. |
This example is better in the active voice. Emphasising the puppy and orangutan makes the sentence clearer. The passive voice version is unnecessarily wordy.
Example 3
| Active voice | Passive voice |
|---|---|
| You must evacuate the building during a fire. | The building must be evacuated during a fire. |
This example has some urgency. The active voice directly tells you what to do in the emergency. The passive voice sentence unnecessarily obscures agency. Who must evacuate the building during a fire? Your best friend’s uncle’s step mother’s cousin? No, you must evacuate the building during a fire! This example is better in the active voice.
When you must be polite, you might prefer using the passive voice. However, in most situations—especially when writing procedures or commands—the active voice is better.
Passive voice
In a passive voice sentence, the target receives the action. Passive voice sentences position the target before the verb and emphasise the target that receives an action. The target selfishly steals the actor’s spotlight.
Although passive voice typically makes a sentence weak, you can effectively use passive voice. Passive voice sentences obscure agency. For example, a sneaky politician might say “Mistakes were made” to conveniently obscure responsibility.
You should use the passive voice when the actor:
- Is unimportant
- Is too obvious
- Is unknown
- Distracts from the sentence’s meaning.
Additionally, you should use the passive voice when you:
- Want to obscure responsibility.
- Want to use an objective tone.
- Must be polite.
Example 1
| Active voice | Passive voice |
|---|---|
| The vet delivered my dog’s puppies at 2:30 am. | My dog’s puppies were delivered at 2:30 am. |
The dog’s puppies are important to the speaker, so the dog’s puppies are the most important part of the sentence. Therefore, the speaker should emphasise the dog’s puppies over the vet. Moreover, as nobody really cares who delivered the puppies, the speaker should omit the vet from the sentence. Therefore, the sentence is better in the passive voice form. (No offence, vet.)
If the speaker emphasised the actor, the actor (the vet) would distract from the dog’s puppies.
Example 2
| Active voice | Passive voice |
|---|---|
| An unknown thief wearing a dog mask robbed the local cupcake store. | The local cupcake store was robbed by an unknown thief wearing a dog mask. |
The actor’s identify is unknown. The unknown actor shouldn’t distract from the known target. The speaker should direct attention to the robbery’s victim (the local cupcake store) over the unknown actor. Therefore, this example is better in the passive voice.
Unobvious verbs
We’ve explored basic examples of active and passive voice. However, some verbs aren’t obvious. Unapparent verbs make it harder to distinguish between active and passive voice. When identifying the grammatical voice, be wary of unobvious verbs.
For example, consider these active voice sentences with unobvious verbs:
- My dog, who saved the twins from the inferno, became a local hero.
- My neighbour’s cat concerns me – she has an intense hatred for my puppy.
- Everyone thinks the local vet is a disgrace because she faked her qualifications.
- May I pet your dog?
Now, consider these passive voice sentences with unobvious verbs:
- During our morning run, my nervous dog was pet by excited strangers.
- Roofus is assumed to be the dumbest dog in Queensland.
- The dog bed has been purchased, but I doubt it will be used.
- Boston Dynamics’ robot dogs have been equipped with turret guns.
Identifying passive voice
When you’ve always unknowingly used passive voice, you might struggle to identify passive voice sentences. However, you can use several methods to identify passive voice sentences.
Position
To identify passive voice, note the position of the action and the actor. A sentence is in passive voice if either:
- The actor is omitted. (For example, “The leg was humped”.)
- The actor occurs after the action. (For example, “The leg was humped by the dog”.)
Be + past participle
Passive voice sentences typically use a form of the verb be with a past participle.
| “be” form | past participle | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| The chew toy | is | destroyed. | |
| The criminal | was | exposed | by Scooby. |
| The dog | has been | walked. | |
| My suitcase | will be | sniffed | by the dog. |
| My puppy | is being | chased. |
The verb be has many forms. These forms include be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been. Moreover, the verb be is a helping verb. A helping verb comes before the main verb and helps express the main verb’s context (tense, mood, voice). A past participle is the past form of a verb. Past participles typically end in -ed, -en, -d, -n.
Zombies
You can recognise a passive voice sentence by adding “by zombies” or “and by zombies” to the end of the sentence. If the sentence still makes grammatical sense, the sentence is in passive voice. For example:
- The sentence “Lady Gaga’s dog was stolen by zombies” makes sense. So, this is a passive voice sentence.
- The sentence “Lady Gaga’s dog was stolen by a thief and by zombies” makes sense. So, this is a passive voice sentence.
- The sentence “Someone stole Lady Gaga’s dog by zombies” doesn’t make sense. So, this is an active voice sentence.
Other methods
You can use many other methods to recognise passive voice. For instance, in a passive voice sentence, a verb is typically followed by a to-infinitive. A to-infinitive is a verb that’s proceeded by the word to.
Note the following examples:
- The dog is expected to win the competition.
- Scooby is to be walked three times a day.
- My puppy has been taught to sit.
Active or passive voice?
People use passive voice for many reasons. Some people use passive voice to make their communications sound more professional and polite. I truly hate to admit it, but “The fridge is to be emptied” indeed sounds fancier than “You must empty the fridge”. However, in most situations, these reasons aren’t valid reasons for using the passive voice. Moreover, if you habitually use the passive voice, you might struggle to identify and omit the passive voice.
Generally, for strong, clear, and concise writing, you should use the active voice. You should only the passive voice if you can use it effectively. As a guideline, make passive voice sentences 10% or less of your content’s total sentences. If you misuse or overuse the passive voice, you may create clunky and confusing sentences. If you have unnecessarily long sentences, consider converting them into simple actor-verb-target sentences.
Before you go, consider this clever example of active and passive voice. I quote this dialogue from the TV Drama The Good Wife. The prosecutor is accusing the defendant of killing somebody named Wagner. After the defence attorney declares an objection, the prosecutor effectively changes the grammatical voice.
Prosecutor: And how did he kill Wagner?
Defence attorney: Objection!
Prosecutor: Withdrawn. How was Wagner killed?