The Passive Voice: Stop Hatin' Ya'll

For years, all my English teachers, especially in writing class, told me the same thing. "Never use the passive voice." When I used the grammar checker* on WordPerfect**, it always told me to change the passive voice. The most famous book on writing and style, Strunk and White, has taught several generations of writers that the passive voice is bad. Well, today, I'm going to stand up proud and say it loud. I LOVE THE PASSIVE VOICE!!!!!

Not really, but the passive voice is not nearly as bad as everyone thinks it is and I use it fairly often, and, I think, fairly well. But remember that the passive voice is like ice cream. (Huh?) Ice cream is delicious and it's ok to eat ice cream sometimes. However, eating ice cream all the time isn't healthy. The passive voice is ok to use as long as you use it correctly and not too much.

How do you make the passive voice?

There are two conditions that have to be met. First, your sentence must have an action verb. Sometimes it is ok to make a passive sentence with a non-action verb, like own, but it's not very common. I can't think of any example in which you can make the passive voice with a linking verb like feel.

Second, your sentence must have an object, direct or indirect. There are three basic patterns that can be changed to the passive voice.

1. SVO - My grandmother made the biscuits.
2. SVOO - My grandmother gave us some fresh-baked cookies.
3. SVOC - My grandmother's cooking made us so happy.

Once you are sure you can change a sentence to the passive voice, it's actually pretty easy. Look at the following sentence.

• My grandmother made the biscuits.

First, find the direct object and make that the subject of the new sentence.

• The biscuits...

Next, add the correct form of the be verb. In this case, made is in the simple past tense, so you need was or were. The new subject is biscuits, which is plural (they), so the correct form is were. Then, change the main verb to the past participle form. Fortunately, in this case it's the same.

• The biscuits were made...

Finally, the subject of the original sentence is connected to the end with the preposition by.

• The biscuits were made by my grandmother.

In both of theses sentences, active and passive, my grandmother is called the agent. (No, my grandmother was not James Bond.) The agent is the person or thing that does the action. Be careful, though, because usually you don't need to add the agent, but I'll explain that later. There are three things you need to remember about changing to the passive voice.

1. Don't change or add anything (except the be verb) to the original verb. If the original verb is in the present tense, like plans, then the passive voice must also be in the present tense, is planned. If there is a helping verb, like can, in the active voice, then you must also have can in the passive voice. For example:

• should do / should be done
• will make / will be made
• has taken / has been taken
• is starting / is being started

2. Don't change anything outside of the SVO clause. Don't move an adverb, don't change prepositions, nothing.

• Yesterday during lunch, someone dropped a tray in the cafeteria.
• Yesterday during lunch, a tray was dropped in the cafeteria.

3. If something, like an adjective, a prepositional phrase or an adjective clause is connected to the object, it must move to the front of the passive sentence with the object.

• We bought the television in the living room a couple of weeks ago.
• The television in the living room was bought a couple of weeks ago.

When Can You Use the Passive Voice?

Whether you can or should use the passive voice (assuming it's an SVO clause with an action verb) depends completely on the subject, which is also known as the agent.  There are four basic situations when you can and probably want to use the passive voice.


1.  The agent is the most important thing.


This follows the basic rule of English "Put the most important information LAST."  This means that, for whatever reason, the person who did the action is more important than everything else.  You must use the prepositional phrase with by at the end.  For example:

1. In Star Wars, Harrison Ford played the role of Han Solo.
2. In Star Wars, the role of Han Solo was played by Harrison Ford.

In the first sentence, the most important information is probably Han Solo, but in the second sentence, absolutely, the most important information is Harrison Ford.  However, you must be careful with this rule.  If the agent is necessary but not extra, EXTRA important, then stick with the active voice.

1. My son watches Sesame Street every afternoon.
2. Sesame Street is watched by my son every afternoon.  (??????????)

Obviously my son is important.  I would have sold him to the circus a long time ago if he wasn't.  However, he is not nearly as important as he thinks he is.  The important information in this case is Sesame Street, so the active voice is the best choice.

2.  The agent is unknown.

I used to live in a condominium that hired window washers to clean the outside windows.  I really appreciated the work that they did but I have no idea what their names were.  And I'm sure they didn't care what my name was either.

1. On Monday, someone is going to wash the outside windows of the building.
2. On Monday, the outside windows of the building are going to be washed.

In this case, you would NOT add the prepositional phrase with by.  Skip the agent altogether.

3.  The agent is understood.

Star Wars is the greatest movie of all time.  The day Star Wars came out in the theater should be an international holiday.  If you don't know that the genius who created, wrote, directed and produced Star Wars was George Lucas, you should be ashamed of yourself.  Therefore, any time I talk about Star Wars, I don't need to tell you who was responsible.

1. George Lucas (duh) released Star Wars on May 25, 1977.
2. Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977.

Again, you would not add the agent with by at the end of the sentence.

4.  You don't want to say who did it?

Occasionally as a teacher, I have to yell at my students.  (I kind of enjoy it, but I save it for special occasions.)  For example, if I catch someone cheating on a test, I don't want to embarrass that person publicly, but I need to talk to my students about the evils of cheating.  I can avoid telling them who it was by using the passive voice.

1. Somebody hid a cheat sheet in their pencil case.
2. A cheat cheat was hidden in a pencil case.

Obviously you are not going to add the agent with by at the end of this sentence.  This is also very useful when you write research papers.  I remember my teachers always telling me "Never write in the first person."  That means never use I or we.  However, what happens when you are describing your experiment and things that you did?  Easy.  Use the passive voice.

1. We divided the subjects into three groups.  (Oops.  I can't use "we.")
2. The subjects were divided into three groups.

Notice that of the four cases in which the passive voice can be used THREE of them do NOT include the agent with by.  That means 75% of the time, putting the person at the end is a BAD IDEA.  In other words, as a general rule, don't add the agent unless the agent is EXTRA, EXTRA important.

Of course the passive voice is more complicated than this and there are some pretty weird structures with the passive voice.  However, these are the basics and with some practice and some concentration, you will be able to use the passive voice pretty well pretty quickly.

If anyone wants some exercises for the passive voice, email me at my Gmail account and I can send you some stuff that will help you practice.

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*My advice is to turn your grammar checker off, especially if you are a non-native speaker.  Grammar checkers don't know how to correct non-native speaker errors, so very often the suggestions they make are bad.

**In my opinion, WordPerfect is by far the best word processor available.  It is far superior to Microsoft Word or Pages for Macs.  Unfortunately WordPerfect only works on Windows machines.  There is no Mac version.  The Student/Teacher version costs less than $100.