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Why Most Advice on the Passive Voice is Wrong (and How to Use It Correctly)

by Henneke | 39 enchanting opinions, add yours? :)

How to Use the Passive Voice (With Examples)Most writing teachers tell you to avoid the passive voice.

I used to say the same.

But after studying good writing for several years, I’ve changed my view.

Sometimes, the passive voice works better than the active.

Shall I explain?

What is the passive voice?

The passive voice explains what’s done to someone rather than what they do.

For instance, this is passive:

Henrietta was hit by a ball on her head.

And this is active:

Henrietta threw a ball through the window.

You see the difference?

In the first example, Henrietta is done to—someone else has thrown a ball that lands on Henrietta’s head. In the second example, Henrietta is the actor—she throws.

The passive voice uses a form of the verb to be or to get. Often the word by is used to indicate who (or what) the actor is but not always. So:

Passive:
Arthur is loved by Henrietta.
Active:
Henrietta loves Arthur, her dog.

Passive:
A mistake was made.
Active:
Henrietta made a mistake.

Passive:
A blog post got written.
Active:
Henrietta finally finished writing her blog post.

The active voice is more dynamic, and it’s more specific—it’s always clear who the actor is. The active voice also feels more natural, less writerly.

If you pay attention to everyday conversations, you’ll note that most sentences use the active voice.

So, the active voice is more common. However, in some cases, the passive voice is okay or even better than the active voice.

When to use the passive voice

Below follow 4 guidelines when the passive voice may be preferable to the active voice.

1. The emphasis is on what’s done to someone

What’s more important—what someone did or what was done to them?

Here’s the first sentence from the chapter Neck (2002) from Maggie O’Farrell’s book I Am, I Am, I Am:

When I am seized suddenly and roughly from behind, my first thought is that it’s someone I know.

The above sentence starts with the passive voice: I am seized.

The story is about one of Maggie O’Farrell’s brushes with death. She describes her experience of a robbery—what was done to her:

There is a machete being held to my throat.

The story is less about the robber and what he’s doing; the story is about O’Farrell and what is done to her. That’s why the passive voice works.

Below follows another example—a tweet by Hannah Matthews (I’ve added punctuation):

If I were a baby who had been bathed, fed, sung to, read to, and lovingly shielded from the suffering and cruelty of this world all day at great personal cost to my caretakers, I would simply go to fucking sleep.

There’s a whole string of passive voices: The baby had been bathed, fed, sung to, read to, and shielded. This sentence is not about the parents and the care they give; the spotlight is on the baby and how much care it receives. That’s why the passive voice works.

In his book Gratitude, Oliver Sacks reflects on his life:

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Did you spot the two passive voices?

These two phrases are passive: I have been loved; I have been given much.

The passive voice works here, too, because it’s about what’s been done to Oliver Sacks. But the choice of passive voice is also about rhythm. Try rephrasing, and not only does the meaning change subtly, you also mess up the rhythm. You’ll notice the difference when you read the two versions aloud:

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and people have loved me; people have given me much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

It’s up to a writer to decide what he or she wants to express. Is something done to someone? Or is someone doing something? And how does the rhythm change if you switch between passive and active?

2. The actor doesn’t matter

You may have seen a sticker on the back of a van with this text:

No tools left in this vehicle overnight.

That’s the passive voice—the word are is left out: No tools are left overnight.

Who’s the actor?

I assume it’s the owner of the van.

But does it matter who took the tools out of the van?

No. What matters is the van is now empty so if you thought about breaking into the van, don’t bother—there’s nothing of value inside.

Because the actor doesn’t matter, it’s okay to use the passive voice. Moreover, if you rephrase the sentence to include the owner of the vehicle, it becomes cumbersome:

Mr. Carpenter has left no tools in this vehicle overnight.

Not only is the latter version longer, the key message (NO TOOLS!) gets buried in the middle of that sentence—the part that gets the least attention.

Beware:

Writers sometimes choose the passive voice not because the actor doesn’t matter but because they want to hide who the actor is. This is a bad practice.

For instance, politicians and corporate executives use the passive voice to promote vagueness and avoid blame:

Mistakes were made.
The business review was completed.
It’s been decided to downsize the company.

But who made those mistakes? Who completed the review? Who decided?

These versions use the active voice:

I made a mistake when I authorized this new refund policy, and I apologize for that.

My team has completed this business review.

I’ve decided to downsize the company.

Don’t use the passive voice to be vague and hide who the actor is.

3. Frontload your key message

Writing for the web?

To help scanners make sense of your web page, put key words at the start.

Usability research shows that when people are scanning a web page, they focus on the first couple of words of headlines, subheads, summaries, captions, and bullet points to establish what the page is about so they can decide whether to read more or to click away.

For instance, at the top of some blog posts, I provide a short summary to quickly communicate the essence of an article. I summarize my article on clear and concise sentences like this:

Clear and concise sentences are sculpted rather than just written.

The only reason for making that sentence passive is that I want to have the words clear and concise at the start because that’s what many people google before they arrive at the page.

Web readers are impatient. To capture them quickly, you may need to use the passive voice so you can frontload key phrases.

4. End with a bang

When reading rather than scanning, we pay most attention to the first and last words of a sentence. The middle of a sentence gets least attention.

So, when possible, put the most meaningful words at the start and at the end of sentence. You may do this already naturally.

In his book Murder Your Darlings, Roy Peter Clark quotes a line from a speech by Michelle Obama; it ends with the most meaningful word:

I live in a house that was built by slaves.

If you try to rearrange that sentence to make it active, it ends up weaker:

I live in a house that slaves have built.

The difference may feel subtle, but it matters. The second version ends weaker (have built) and the strongest phrase (slaves) is buried in the middle. In the passive version the sentence ends with the strongest phrase (by slaves).

So, a writer or speaker can choose to use the passive voice. Deliberately.

Perhaps they want to stress what’s done to someone. Or the actor doesn’t matter. Or they choose the passive voice to put key words at the start or end of a sentence.

How to choose between active and passive voice

Let’s look at one more example—a fab sentence which uses both the active and passive voice.

Hadley Freeman wrote the following about Salman Rushdie in The Guardian:

[Salman Rushdie] will always be best known, to his chagrin, not for something he did, but for something that was done to him, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989.

Let’s analyze this sentence part by part …

The first part uses the passive voice:

Salman Rushdie will always be best known …

The actor in this case is the general public and Freeman has chosen not to specify that as most readers will assume this. She makes Salman Rushdie the focal point of the sentence.

Here’s the second part of the sentence:

… not for something he did …

That’s the active voice: Rushdie did something (namely, he wrote books). Rushdie is the actor in this part.

And Freeman contrasts that active voice with the passive in the next part:

… but for something that was done to him …

Hadley uses the passive voice to stress that Salman Rushdie was the passive recipient of the fatwa. It was done to him.

Lastly, the sentence turns to the active voice again:

… when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him.

In this last part of her sentence, Hadley stresses the active role of the Ayatollah. He is the actor. He issued the fatwa. Freeman would have diminished the Ayatollah’s role if she had used the passive voice in this last part of the sentence.

Choose wisely

The main reason to use the passive rather than the active voice is to stress that something was done to someone.

You can also use the passive voice to frontload your key message or to end with a bang, or because it doesn’t matter who the actor is.

If in doubt, go for the active voice because it’s more dynamic and less writerly.

Lastly, remember:

You’re the writer. You choose how to express your ideas.

Happy writing!

the difference between the passive and active voice

Recommended grammar tips for business writers:

How punctuation shapes your voice
4 pronoun mistakes tripping up your readers
How to use adverbs correctly

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Comments

  1. Sue Brettell says

    September 23, 2023 at 11:01 am

    Thank you soooo much for this post, Henneke. Sometimes there’s only one way to say something that has to be passive because the active version is way too clunky or weak.

    I regularly have shouting matches with my spelling and grammar checker. Well, I shout, and it continues to insist.

    Example: “When my cancer was diagnosed…”. The checker insists it should be “When they diagnosed my cancer”… Who the heck are “they?”. It would mean adding a totally unnecessary amount of information and restructuring.

    But self-doubt has a way of sneaking in when the (supposedly) infallible grammar checker chastises my passive voice.

    You have restored my faith!

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 24, 2023 at 4:37 pm

      I’m with you on this one. The grammar checker is wrong.

      Grammar checkers aren’t perfect. It’s okay to follow your own intuition.

      Reply
  2. Biswajit says

    October 6, 2022 at 10:12 am

    The way you explain the passive is the simplest one. I must share this with my students to learn from.
    Thank you for sharing this with us.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      October 6, 2022 at 10:28 am

      Thank you. I hope your students will like it, too.

      Reply
  3. Urs says

    September 29, 2022 at 12:43 pm

    Thank you Henneke, for another valuable topic where you let us peep behind the curtain.
    I see another important situation where I prefer to write ‘what’s done to someone rather than what I do’: In the sales copy I can change the perspective so that the reader is acting (or at least experiencing). For example: Instead of ‘I will show you the way to the sunny destination’ I might say ‘you will learn, how to find your way to the sunny destination’.
    Thanks, Henneke for your continued inspiration.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 30, 2022 at 10:27 am

      Yes, that’s another excellent way to shift the perspective! Thank you for sharing, Urs 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lubosi says

    September 23, 2022 at 6:14 pm

    Thanks for explaining this to me, what you have written will improve my writing by 10 times. Thanks

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 23, 2022 at 8:02 pm

      And thank you for stopping by Lubosi. Happy writing!

      Reply
  5. Katharine says

    September 21, 2022 at 2:18 pm

    I’ve always taught to use the passive when appropriate, but almost always it is not appropriate. I’ve always listed three occasions. However, I never thought of the bots. Haha! Front-loading for bots is not one of my practices, but hey, if the bots are ruling, so be it! I do include, in reference to the importance of the doer of the action not mattering, also the occasion when he is unknown, such as in, “I’ve been robbed.”
    I would caution Sacks about parallel thoughts needing parallel construction, though. Hehe.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 21, 2022 at 8:28 pm

      Ah, I haven’t expressed myself clearly. I didn’t mean bots. I meant people arriving at a web page who first scan or skim the page before deciding whether to read more. I’ll update it!

      It’s good to see you again, Katharine. I’ve been thinking of you! <3

      Reply
      • Katharine says

        September 22, 2022 at 12:22 am

        Love being here and love you, as we all do. 🙂

        Reply
  6. Sue-Ann Bubacz says

    September 21, 2022 at 7:14 am

    Henneke;

    Hope you’re having fun!

    I’m an active voice promoter, but as I think it over, it’s got a lot to do with application. For example, oftentimes web copy and other web writing feels more powerful and compelling than using passive voice.

    What I like most is the idea that as the writer, you decide and yes, can break rules to communicate as you like…

    Best wishes and thanks for another thoughtful post,

    Sue-Ann

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 21, 2022 at 9:46 am

      I agree with you. I mostly promote active voice as well. The active voice is more powerful and dynamic, less writerly. I just wanted to explain that it’s not true that active voice is *always* better.

      We can break all the rules as long as we break them deliberately 🙂

      Thank you for stopping by, Sue-Ann. I appreciate you.

      Reply
  7. Paul Herring says

    September 21, 2022 at 6:30 am

    Good as always, Henneke. You make sense better than almost anyone and I’ve read many books and pieces by well known writers.

    Let’s hope kudos from other readers come your way because you deserve them.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 21, 2022 at 9:44 am

      Thank you for your compliment, Paul.

      Reply
  8. Bethany says

    September 20, 2022 at 10:07 pm

    I always get little nuggets of gold when reading your blogposts, Henneke! Thank you.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 21, 2022 at 9:44 am

      Thank you, Bethany!

      Reply
  9. Kitty Kilian says

    September 20, 2022 at 7:30 pm

    About the sentence from Michelle Obama: possibly the most important information should always go in the beginning or at the end of a sentence…

    On another note: I thoroughly dislike Sachs. I think he’s a pompous ass.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 7:48 pm

      I had the impression before that you disliked Sachs. I’ve read a couple of his books and didn’t get such an impression.

      And yes, I agree on most important information always at the start or the end. And for headlines etc online, at the start so scanners will notice.

      Reply
      • Kitty Kilian says

        September 20, 2022 at 9:00 pm

        He cherrypicks amongst psychiatric illnesses and chooses the weirdest ones for his books. I hated what he wrote about Tourettes. But well.

        Reply
        • Henneke says

          September 21, 2022 at 9:43 am

          I’m sorry about that. I haven’t read what he wrote about Tourettes. I read his book Awakenings (about sleep sickness) about 20 years ago. More recently, I read his memoir (On the Move) and he came across as quite shy, self-conscious, caring. I was more interested in reading about his life than about his patients. I can imagine that his books about psychiatric illnesses are different.

          Reply
          • Kitty Kilian says

            September 21, 2022 at 10:37 am

            Well, that’s really nice of you 😉
            I am veering way off topic anyhow. Sorry.

            Reply
            • Henneke says

              September 21, 2022 at 11:16 am

              I am glad you raised this.

              Reply
  10. Tarcisio Galdieri says

    September 20, 2022 at 6:08 pm

    Brilliant as always. Thank you, Henneke.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 6:24 pm

      Thank you so much, Tarcisio 🙂

      Reply
  11. Curtis says

    September 20, 2022 at 5:07 pm

    Dear publishers of grammar books. Pay attention. Read this post. Notice something? It is only the best lesson on passive and active voice you will find —period! ( And, yes. Henneke has other grammar lessons equally as good. I knew you would want to know.)

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 6:24 pm

      Thank you, thank you, Curtis. I had hoped you would like this! Finally, a grammar post again 🙂

      Reply
  12. Maria Perry Mohan says

    September 20, 2022 at 4:35 pm

    What a thoroughly creative and refreshing post this is! Well done, Henneke. You have given me food for thought. Yet again.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 4:48 pm

      I’m so glad you enjoyed this, Maria. Happy writing!

      Reply
  13. Shweta says

    September 20, 2022 at 3:33 pm

    Nice post Henneke.
    I often keep my sentences in passive voice even if Yoast suggests otherwise!
    But you have listed these out so logically. Point 4 is something I am going to keep in mind intentionally.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Shweta.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 4:22 pm

      Good for you for ignoring Yoast already. As writers, we make our choices. The apps can be useful to point out overly long sentences, adverbs, or sentences using the passive voice but it’s up to us whether we want to change it or not.

      Reply
  14. Daniela says

    September 20, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    So many important questions were answered here! Thank you, Henneke, brilliant post as always :).

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 2:23 pm

      I’m glad you found it useful, Daniela. Thank you for stopping by 🙂

      Reply
  15. Doug Garfield says

    September 20, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    Another tool for the toolkit. Thank you, Henneke.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 2:06 pm

      Happy writing, Doug!

      Reply
  16. Lisa Sicard says

    September 20, 2022 at 12:11 pm

    Thank you, Henneke, this is a big lesson for me. I’ve printed out a sheet with words to use for non-passive writing but your examples are astounding and must keep near my desk.

    Reply
    • Henneke says

      September 20, 2022 at 12:16 pm

      Thank you so much, Lisa. I’ve wanted to write this post for almost a year but it took me ages to find these examples. It partly took so long because I don’t always pay attention to the use of passive voice when I read. But also, many examples are not as straightforward as the ones I’ve chosen. I wanted to be sure the examples were clear. I much appreciate your comment!

      Reply
      • Blanche says

        September 26, 2022 at 2:36 pm

        Thank you very much Henneke. Most enlightening.

        Reply
        • Henneke says

          September 26, 2022 at 2:56 pm

          Thank you, Blanche 🙂

          Reply

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