Passive Voice

The passive voice is a grammatical voice in which the subject receives the action of a transitive verb, and passive refers more generally to verbs using this construction and the passages in which they are used. In English, a passive verb is periphrastic; that is, it does not have a one-word form, but consists of an auxiliary verb plus the past participle of the transitive verb. The auxiliary verb usually is a form of the verb to be, but other auxiliary verbs, such as get, are sometimes used. The passive voice can be used in any number of tenses.

In the following passage from the Declaration of Independence, the passive verbs are bolded, while the active verb hold and the copulative verb are are italicized:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Advice against the passive voice

Many critics and usage guides discourage the use of the passive voice.^[1] This advice is not found in older guides, but emerged in the first half of the twentieth century.^[2] Among the first writers to criticize the passive voice was Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote in 1916:

Generally, use transitive verbs, that strike their object; and use them in the active voice, eschewing the stationary passive, with its little auxiliary its’s and was’s, and its participles getting into the light of your adjectives, which should be few. For, as a rough law, by his use of the straight verb and by his economy of adjectives you can tell a man’s style, if it be masculine or neuter, writing or 'composition.

Two years later, William Strunk, Jr. cautioned against overuse of the passive voice in The Elements of Style:

The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive . . . . The need of making a particular word the subject of the sentence will often . . . determine which voice is to be used. The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative principally concerned with action, but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is, or could be heard.

In his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell stated as one of his principal rules of composition, "Never use the passive where you can use the active."

Many contemporary usage guides continue to advise against the passive voice, as in this 1993 example from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

Active voice makes subjects do something (to something); passive voice permits subjects to have something done to them (by someone or something). Some argue that active voice is more muscular, direct, and succinct, passive voice flabbier, more indirect, and wordier. If you want your words to seem impersonal, indirect, and noncommittal, passive is the choice, but otherwise, active voice is almost invariably likely to prove more effective.

Uses of the passive voice

In spite of the widespread criticism, the passive voice does have important uses and is employed by all skilled writers of English.Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" is itself an example; over 20% of its constructions are passive, an unusually high percentage.

In general, the passive voice should be used when the receiver of the action is more important than the doer, or when the doer is unknown, unimportant, or perhaps too obvious to be worth mentioning, as in these examples:

• The child was struck by the car.

• The store was robbed last night.

• Plows should not be kept in the garage.

• Kennedy was elected president.

The passive voice can also be used to make other changes to a sentence's emphasis, including emphasizing a modifying adverb or even the performer of the action:

• My remarks have been grossly distorted in the press.

• The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans, two researchers in the university’s genetic engineering lab.

The passive voice is sometimes used to conceal the performer of an action or the identity of a person responsible for a mistake:

• We had hoped to report on this problem but the data was inadvertently deleted from our files.

It is this use of the passive voice, to evade responsibility, that has been the subject of greatest criticism.

The passive voice is often used in scientific writing because of the tone of detachment and impersonality that it helps establish. However, some scientific journals prefer their writers to use the active voice.