Passive
Voice
Passive: A
discrepancy in the bank balance was
detected by auditors.
Active: Auditors detected a discrepancy in the
bank balance.
Passive: In the
April issue your article will be
published by us.
Active: In the
April issue we will publish your
article.
Passive: The
Active: The vice president informed the
When writers use passive voice,
they create awkward prose and powerless, stilted sentences with weakened
verbs.*
What is passive
voice?
Voice refers to the form of the
verb. The subject acts when you use the active voice verb form. In the passive
voice, the person or thing performing the action becomes instead the object of
the sentence; it does not act, but is acted upon by the verb.
Active: He photographed the homeless
teens.
Passive: The
homeless teens were photographed by
him.
Passive: Photographs were taken of the homeless
teens.
Active Construction
who
did what
to whom
Passive construction
who had
what done to it by
whom
Problems with
passive:
1.
Passive voice tends
to dilute the verb of its power
2.
Passive voice can
make a sentence unnecessarily awkward
3.
Passive voice
creates false formality
4.
Passive voice may
intentionally or accidentally obscure who or what is responsible for an
action
Problems with
structure, clarity and credibility.
*(Lauren
Kessler and Duncan McDonald. “When
Words Collide: A Media Writer’s Guide to Grammar and Style.” Boston: Wadsworth,
2012.)