Active vs. Passive Voice
You’ve probably heard of the passive voice—perhaps in a comment from an English teacher or in the grammar checker of a word processor. In both of these instances, you were (likely) guided away from the passive voice. Why is this the case? Why is the passive voice so hated? After all, it’s been used twice on this page already (three times now). When the passive voice is used too frequently, it can make your writing seem flat and drab. However, there are some instances where the passive voice is a better choice than the active.
So just what is the difference between these two voices?
An active voice sentence is written in the form of “A does B.” (For example, “Carmen sings the song.”)
A passive voice sentence is written in the form of “B is done by A.” (For example, “The song is sung by Carmen.”)
Let’s look at a couple more examples of the passive voice:
I’ve been hit! (or, I have been hit!)
Jasper was thrown from the car when it was struck from behind.
You may have noticed something unique about the previous two sentences: the subject of the sentence is not the person (or thing) performing the action. The passive voice “hides” who does the action. Despite these sentences being completely grammatically sound, we don’t know who hit “me” or what struck the car.
The passive is created using the verb to be (e.g., the song is sung; it was struck from behind).
So why all the fuss? Because passive constructions can produce grammatically tangled sentences such as this:
Groundwater flow is influenced by zones of fracture concentration, as can be recognized by the two model simulations (see Figures 1 and 2), by which one can see…
The sentence is becoming a burden for the reader, and probably for the writer too. As often happens, the passive voice here has smothered potential verbs and kicked off a runaway train of prepositions. But the reader’s task gets much easier in the revised version below:
Two model simulations (Figures 1 and 2) illustrate how zones of fracture concentration influence groundwater flow. These simulations show…
To revise the above, all that was required was looking for the two buried things (simulations and zones) in the original version that could actually do something. Then you can make the sentence clearly about these two nouns by placing them in front of active verbs.
This is the general principle to follow as you compose in the active voice: place concrete nouns that can perform work in front of active verbs.
Practice Exercise 6
Convert these passive voice sentences into the active voice. Also answer why the active voice is a better choice for each of these sentences.
- The process, which was essential for the experiment’s success, was completed by Enzo.
- The cake that I worked on all day long is being eaten by Justin.
- After the pattern has been applied to the fabric, work on the embroidery can be started.
Using the Passive Voice
Don’t get the idea that the passive voice is always wrong and should never be used. It is a good writing technique when we don’t want to be bothered with an obvious or too-often-repeated subject and when we need to rearrange words in a sentence for emphasis.
There are several different situations where the passive voice is more useful than the active voice.
- When you don’t know who did the action: The paper had been moved.
The active voice would be something like this: “Someone had moved the paper.” While this sentence is technically fine, the passive voice sentence has a more subtle element of mystery, which can be especially helpful in creating a mood in fiction.
2. When you want to hide who did the action: The window had been broken.
The sentence is either hiding who broke the window or they do not know. Using the passive puts the focus on the window rather than on the person who broke it, as he, she, or they is completely left out of the sentence.
3. When you want to emphasize the person or thing the action was done to: Caroline was hurt when Kent broke up with her.
We automatically focus on the subject of the sentence. If the sentence were to say “Kent hurt Caroline when he broke up with her,” then our focus would be drawn to Kent rather than Caroline.
4. A subject that can’t actually do anything: Caroline was hurt when she fell into the trees.
While the trees hurt Caroline, they didn’t actually do anything. Thus, it makes more sense to have Caroline as the subject rather than saying “The trees hurt Caroline when she fell into them.”
Adapted from “Active vs. Passive Voice” in Lightbulb: Rhetoric and Composition by Athena Kashyap and Erika Dyquisto under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
