Chapter 9.15 Active vs. Passive Voice
As a college writer, you need to know when and how to use both active and passive voice. Although active voice is the standard preferred writing style, passive voice is acceptable, and even preferred, in certain situations. However, as a general rule, passive voice tends to be awkward, vague, and wordy.
To use active voice, you should make the noun that performs the action the subject of the sentence and pair it directly with an action verb.
Read these two sentences:
- Matt Damon left Harvard in the late 1980s to start his acting career.
- Matt Damon’s acting career was started in the late 1980s when he left Harvard.
In the first sentence, “left” is an action verb that is paired with the subject, “Matt Damon.” If you ask yourself “Who or what left?” the answer is “Matt Damon.” Neither of the other two nouns in the sentence—”Harvard” and “career”—left anything.
Now look at the second sentence. The action verb is “started.” If you ask yourself “Who or what started something?” the answer is again “Matt Damon.” But in this sentence, “career” has been placed in the subject position, not “Matt Damon.”
A sentence is in the passive voice when the person or thing doing the action is not the subject. Instead, the subject is the one receiving the action. In these constructions, the doer of the action often comes after the word “by” in a prepositional phrase. Also, the verb is usually formed with a version of “to be” followed by a past participle (e.g., was written, is made, has been cleaned).
Look at the following two passive voice sentences. For each sentence, note the noun in the subject position, the form of the verb “to be,” the action verb, and the doer of the action.
- The original screenplay for Good Will Hunting was written by Matt Damon for an English class when he was a student at Harvard University.
- As an actor, Matt Damon is loved by millions of fans worldwide.
Revised to be active:
- Matt Damon wrote the original screenplay for Good Will Hunting for an English class when he was a student at Harvard University.
- Millions of fans worldwide love Matt Damon as an actor.
Using Action Verbs to Make Sentences More Interesting
Two sentences can generally say the same thing but leave an entirely different impression based on the verb choices. For example, which of the following sentences gives you the most vivid mental picture?
- A bald eagle was overhead and now is low in the sky near me.
Or
- A bald eagle soared and then dove low, appearing to come right at me.
As a rule, try to express yourself with action verbs instead of forms of the verb “to be.” Sometimes it is fine to use forms of the verb “to be,” such as “is” or “are,” but it is easy to overuse them (as in this sentence—twice). Overuse of such verbs results in dull writing.
Read each of the following sentences and note the use of the verb “to be.” In your head, think of a way to reword the sentence to make it more interesting by using an action verb. Then look at how each revision uses one or more action verbs.
Examples
Original: A photo was snapped, the tiger was upset, and Elizabeth was on the ground.
- Revision: Elizabeth innocently snapped the photo, and the lion let out a roar that sent Elizabeth scrambling backward until she fell down.
Original: There are thousands of butterflies in the Butterfly House.
- Revision: Thousands of butterflies flitter around in the Butterfly House.
Using Passive Voice
Sometimes passive voice actually is the best option. The point is to only use passive voice when you consciously decide to do so. Consider the following acceptable uses of passive voice.
Examples
When you don’t know who or what is responsible for the action:
- Example: Our front door lock was picked.
- Rationale: If you don’t know who picked the lock on your front door, you can’t say who did it. You could say a thief broke in, but that is an assumption. You could, theoretically, find out that the lock was picked by a family member who had forgotten to take a key.
When you want to hide the person or thing responsible for the action, such as in a story:
- Example: The basement was filled with a mysterious scraping sound.
- Rationale: If you are writing a story, you might logically introduce a phenomenon without revealing the person or thing that caused it.
Exercise 9.15.1
On a separate sheet of paper, change the following sentences from passive to active voice.
- The zebras were fed by the zoo workers.
- The dog was walked by Marcus.
- The National Anthem will be sung by Lady Gaga.
- Delicious meals are prepared by the chef.
- A bridge over the river is being constructed by the workers.
Attributions
WCS5: Writing in Active Voice and Uses of Passive Voice adapted from Chapter 16 “Sentence Style” in Writer’s Handbook v 1.0 used according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
