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Rhetoric: Masterful Persuasion, not Artful Deceit

Passive Voice

Author: MayMay

This lesson will help you understand what the passive voice is, why many professors and writing instructors frown upon it, and how you can revise your paper to achieve greater clarity. Some things here may surprise you.

So what is the Passive Voice?

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.

Take a look at this passive rephrasing of a familiar joke:

Who is doing the action in this sentence? The chicken is the one doing the action in this sentence, but the chicken is not in the spot where you would expect the grammatical subject to be.

Instead, the road is the grammatical subject. The more familiar phrasing (why did the chicken cross the road?) puts the actor in the subject position, the position of doing something - the chicken (the actor/doer) crosses the road (the object).

We use active verbs to represent that "doing,"whether it be crossing roads, proposing ideas, making arguments, or invading houses.

Once you know what to look for, passive constructions are easy to spot.

Look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle.

Here's a formula for identifying the passive voice:

form of "to be" + past participle = passive voice

For example:

"The metropolis has been scorched by the dragon's fiery breath."

"When her house was invaded, Penelope had to think of ways to delay her remarriage."

Note: forms of the word "have" can do several different things in English. For example, in the sentence "John has to study all afternoon," "had" is not part of a past-tense verb.

It's a modal verb, like "must," "can," or "may" - these verbs tell how necessary it is to do something (compare "I have to study" versus "I may study").

Forms of "be" are not always passive, either - "be" can be the main verb of a sentence that describes a state of being, rather than an action. For example, the sentence "John is a good student" is not passive; "is" is simply describing John's state of being.

The moral of the story:

Don't assume that any time you see a form of "have" and a form of "to be" together, you are looking at a passive sentence.

"I have to be on time for the concert," for example, is not passive. Ask yourself whether there is an action going on in the sentence and, if so, whether whoever or whatever is doing that action is the subject of the sentence.

In a passive sentence, the object of the action (e.g., the road) will be in the subject position at the front of the sentence. There will be a form of be and a past participle. If the subject appears at all, it will usually be at the end of the sentence, often in a phrase that starts with "by" (e.g., "by the chicken").

One might argue that the meaning comes through here - the problem is merely stylistic.

Yet style affects how your reader understands your argument and content.

Awkward or unclear style prevents your reader from appreciating the ideas that are so clear to you when you write.

Knowing how your reader might react enables you to make more effective choices when you revise. So after you identify instances of the passive, you should consider whether your use of the passive inhibits clear understanding of what you mean.