Easily Fix Your Unrestrained Use of the Passive Voice
(This article is one section of the chapter Identify and Fix These Thirteen Weaknesses in Your Writing from my book Write Better than You Ever Have.)
Important Note: Before you read this article, read the related one, Master the Use of the Passive Voice and the Active Voice.
In this article, we focus on only the overuse of the passive voice and how to easily fix that overuse.
Nearly All Grammar Authorities Recommend the Active Voice over the Passive Voice
Sometimes we need the passive voice, but for most sentences we should prefer the active voice to the passive voice. William Zinsser assertively encouraged us to “use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb. The difference between an active verb style and a passive-verb style — in clarity and vigor — is the difference between life and death for a writer. ‘Joe saw him’ is strong. ‘He was seen by Joe’ is weak. The first is short and precise; it leaves no doubt about who did what.”14
George Orwell emphatically made the same point: “Never use the passive where you can use the active.”15
Grammarian Tom McArthur stressed grammarian Dennis Baron’s view on the passive: “Baron notes that critics who downgrade the passive apply to its use such adjectives as ‘lazy’, ‘hazy’, ‘vague’, ‘distant’, ‘watery’, and ‘wordy.’”16 McArthur also added this Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage’s perspective: “Everyone agrees you should not lean too heavily on passive sentences and that you should especially avoid awkwardly constructed passives.”16
Indeed, just about all style guides and respected grammarians recommend we use the active and use the passive only when it is required. Fowler lectures us that the passive voice “sometimes leads to bad grammar, false idiom, or clumsiness.”17
When the Passive Voice Isn’t Required It Muddies the Writing
Judge the following two sentences for yourself:
Passive: If any food was eaten by any of the bonobos in sight on the sampling point, we noted the name of the food and the vegetative part eaten.(harvard.edu)
Active: If you eat two cups of yogurt a day and you make your own yogurt, you could save a thousand dollars at the end of the year.(yale.edu)
Which sentence do you understand better? Which appears more grammatically sound (clear, unambiguous, and comprehensible)? Which makes more sense?
To each question, I unhesitatingly and unsurprisingly choose the active voice sentence.
Problems with the Passive Voice
If you don’t need the passive voice or if you use it incorrectly, it can enfeeble your writing, usually with wordy and unclear sentences. In addition, writers often use it injudiciously, resulting in prose that lacks forthrightness. Ruminate on the following enfeebled sentences and observe the active voice alternatives in parentheses.
- It can leave doubt about who did what: The game was won by a buzzer beater. (Active: Jerry Sloheim hit a jumper as time expired to give the Seminoles the win.)
- It can permit unnecessary vagueness: The flowers were arranged in that pattern. (Active: Susan arranged the flowers in that pattern to welcome the new guests.)
- It can result in incomprehensible prose: The bag was stolen by whoever wasn’t in attendance at the party. (Active: Someone who was not at the party stole the bag.)
- It fosters equivocation: We all agree a lie was told. (Active: I lied.)
- It can result in confusing prose: They were expelled for the offense of having beaten up the professor. (Active: The school expelled them because they beat up the professor.)
Avoid the Double Passive
That last example exemplifies a double passive. When we use the passive voice in two clauses in the same sentence, we create a double passive. The double passive often results in gobbledygook: Some people have been recognized as the culprits for having beaten up someone. (Active: Witnesses recognize the culprits who beat up the person.)
Always avoid using a double passive.
Are You Using the Passive Voice Unrestrainedly?
When you write, if you don’t continually think about constructing sentences in the active voice most of the time, and strive to write sentences in the passive voice only when necessary, you likely have a passive voice problem. Why? We seem inclined to naturally use the passive voice to communicate, avoiding pronouns such as I, me, you, etc., perhaps to remove any hints of our opinionated perspective, perhaps to appear more humble, perhaps to avoid blame or responsibility.
Quickly look at a sample of your writing to see if you use the passive voice when you don’t need it.
Techniques to Reduce the Passive Voice in Your Writing
You can easily eliminate the passive where it is not needed, as the following techniques illustrate:
- Let the doer of the verb act; place it as the subject:
Passive: The ball was stolen by Ryan. (Ryan is the object.)
Active: Ryan stole the ball. (Now Ryan is the subject.) - Eliminate the to be verbs:
Passive: I want to be accepted.
Active: I want them to accept me. - Use I, we, you, etc. as the subject, eliminating to be verbs:
Passive: The use of the passive voice should be reduced.
Active: You should reduce your use of the passive voice. - Don’t use the impersonal passive:
Especially when writing letters, you should avoid using the impersonal passive, which starts with the subject it followed by the passive voice (in these examples): it is believed that, it was agreed that, it will be agreed on, it was supposed.
Sir Ernest Gowers shares his wisdom on the matter, advising that when addressing an individual in a letter, we should avoid the impersonal passive and not use “… formal unsympathetic phrases such as ‘it is felt,’ ‘it is regretted,’ ‘it is appreciated.’ You should want your readers to feel that they are dealing with human beings rather than robots.”18
For the sake of clarity and comprehensibility, for the sake of forthrightness and vigor, for the sake of our readers’ time and awareness, we should strive to use the active voice readily and the passive purposefully — only when our writing requires it.
Do the top grammar authorities agree that we should reduce our use of the passive voice?
Fowler: ✓ Bryan Garner: ✓ Ed Good: ✓
