A colleague of mine posted a grammar tip on LinkedIn recently that sparked a conversation about what rules our English teachers had drummed into us that we still use today. I immediately remembered my middle school composition teacher, Mrs. Burns, lecturing us about the dangers of using passive voice in our essays. Depending on the length of the essay, she allowed us to have just two passive sentences in each paper. If your paper had more than two, you lost points off the final grade. Many of the kids in my class were frustrated with this rule and argued that we would never worry about passive voice in real life. Of course, that argument did nothing to sway our teacher. Mrs. Burns knew that one day we would need to know how to identify and change passive voice sentences.

She was right. We do need to know how to identify passive constructions. However, passive voice is useful sometimes. Mrs. Burns forgot to mention that.

Passive Voice

So, what is passive voice? Also known as indirect sentences, passive voice means that a subject is the recipient of a verb’s action. We form passive sentences with a conjugated form of to be and the verb’s past participle. Generally, it calls for a preposition too.

It sounds complicated to explain, but it’s not. Take a look at the example below.

Ellie was eaten by the bear.

We have our object (Ellie), a conjugated form of to be (was), a past participle (eaten), a prepositional phrase (by), and the subject (the bear). Grammatically speaking, there is nothing wrong with this sentence construction.

If it isn’t wrong, why didn’t Mrs. Burns want us to write this way?

Active Voice

Passive voice isn’t as concise as the alternative, active voice. Active voice sentences have a stronger, more direct tone that is clearer for readers than passive voice. Let’s rephrase our example sentence in active voice for a comparison.

The bear ate Ellie.

By rephrasing, we strengthened the sentence overall. Our readers are clear on who the subject is and what the subject is doing. The subject (the bear) performed an action (ate) on the object (Ellie).

We also eliminated two words and a prepositional phrase. Now, in a sentence with only six words, that may not seem like a big deal. But as sentences become more complex, using passive voice can lead to confusion and a mess of prepositional phrases. Wordy, complex sentences are more difficult for readers to follow.

As writers, our job is to communicate information clearly and concisely. Using active voice is generally the best way for us to accomplish that goal. Our English teachers wanted us to be strong writers; that’s why they discouraged our use of passive sentences. However, using passive voice isn’t always a bad thing.

When Passive Voice is Helpful

This is the part that Mrs. Burns left out of our English lessons. Sometimes, using passive voice is helpful. Use passive voice when you want to

• emphasize the action instead of the actor;
• keep the focus consistent throughout the passage;
• be tactful by eliminating the actor;
• describe a condition with unknown or unimportant actors; or
• create a tone of authority.

Just remember: use passive constructions sparingly.

In the Real World

If you are in the writing industry, chances are you already know to look out for passive voice in your work, but the subject pops up in other places as well.

Are you a student? As a university undergrad, I had to write lots of briefs, condensing long documents into summaries. If you have a tight word count or page limit, check your work for passive sentences. You can eliminate words and improve your brief by switching your sentences to active voice.

Are your kids learning virtually? You may find yourself trying to remember passive vs. active, plus many other grammar rules, if your children are asking you for homework help while we’re in lockdown.

Are you in a customer service or management position? When things go wrong and you must explain an error to your boss, passive voice can come in handy. Saying “the instructions were misinterpreted” is accurate, but much kinder than saying “Joe misread the instructions.” Rephrasing allows you to protect your team and not embarrass a team member.

Do you have a website? If so, you may be familiar with search engine optimization (SEO). There are many plugins that will help you with SEO, some of which will give you readability statistics. If you use the Yoast SEO plugin, it will check your content and warn you if more than 10% of your sentences are passive constructions.

If you are struggling with passive voice or trying to clarify your writing, contact me! As a copyeditor, my goal is to help make your writing clear, concise, and consistent. Together, we can make your document bulletproof.