Is Passive Voice Wrong? Spot It, Keep It, or Fix It
Spot passive voice with the be-plus-participle test. Keep it for unknown actors, then rewrite only when the missing agent is the point of the sentence.
Updated 10 min read
Passive voice is a grammatical voice: the subject receives the action, built from be or get plus a past participle. Merriam-Webster pairs "The goalie blocked the shot" with "The shot was blocked by the goalie." UNC says the second form is not a grammar error.
APA 7th §4.13 still prefers active, especially when people do the work. On r/writing, workshop groups still circle every was.
Key Takeaways
- The construction is be or get plus a past participle. It is a focus choice, not a grammar error.
- Was is not a diagnosis. Linking be, progressives, and adjectives mimic the shape and stay active.
- Keep it when the actor is unknown, obvious, or off-stage, or when the recipient is the news.
- Rewrite when the missing agent is the information the reader needs. Leave born, burgled, and idioms alone.
What Is Passive Voice?
Passive voice makes the object of an action into the grammatical subject. The actor can follow in a by-phrase, or drop out.
Purdue OWL states the rule in one line: the subject is acted upon. Presence of be does not, by itself, make a sentence passive.
Cambridge treats the choice as information structure. Active puts the doer first. Passive makes the thing acted on the topic.
The formula is stable across writing centers:
form of be (sometimes get) + past participle of a transitive verb [+ optional by-agent]
Active: actor + verb + target. Louise swung the sword.
Passive: target + be/get + past participle. The sword was swung by Louise. That pair is longer by a be and a by.
Voice is not tense. You can write it in present, past, or future.
NPS adds a boundary: voice only applies when an agent does something to a recipient. John is a good student names a state. That line is not passive.
How to Spot Passive Voice
Hunt the formula, not the word was.
Run the Formula First
Find a form of be or get plus a past participle. Regular participles end in -ed. Irregulars include paid, driven, known, and frozen.
Ask what the action is, who performs it, and whether that performer is the grammatical subject. If the subject receives the action, you have the construction.
An optional by-phrase is a clue, not a requirement. My car was stolen is still passive with the thief unnamed.
Try the By-Zombies Test
Hamilton popularized a shortcut: if you can grammatically add "by zombies" after the verb, the clause is likely passive.
The pizza was eaten becomes The pizza was eaten by zombies. The pizza smelled delicious does not.
Treat the zombies test as a heuristic. It misses some get-passives and can false-positive on adjectives. Keep the agency point and skip the morality play.
False Friends: Was Is Not Passive
On r/writing, a 935-upvote thread exists because critique groups circle every was.
"In my writing group, there is a guy who circles every instance of 'was' and marks it as passive voice. It is very frustrating. Weak word? Yes. PV? No." (u/dmoonfire in r/writing, May 2021)
UNC lists the same mix-up as myth #2: any to be is not this construction.
Looks passive | Why it isn't |
|---|---|
John is a good student | Linking be plus a complement |
I am holding a pen | Progressive: be plus -ing |
There were mistakes | Active; no past participle |
The meeting began | Intransitive, not a passive verb |
The shop is closed | Usually an adjective |
Open the file. | Imperative; implied you is active |
Mistakes occurred is active. He died is active and names no killer. He was murdered by Jack the Ripper is passive and names one.
Wordiness is not the test either. A marketing editor who flags long sentences as "passive" is guessing. Google is clearer: Open the configuration file is already active.
Active Voice vs Passive Voice
Pick who occupies the subject slot. There is no abstract winner.
Active | Passive | |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Actor + verb + target | Target + be/get + past participle |
Example | Louise swung the sword. | The sword was swung by Louise. |
Default | Prose, email, blogs, business | Unknown actor; recipient as news |
Length | Usually shorter | Extra be plus optional by |
Risk | Foregrounds the wrong entity | Hides who did the work |
Purdue OWL uses active for most non-scientific writing because fewer words carry the verb.
The entrance exam was failed by over one-third of the applicants becomes Over one-third of the applicants failed the entrance exam.
Toronto's Heisenberg pair shows the spotlight shift, not a grammar upgrade:
- Active: Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle in 1927.
- Passive: The uncertainty principle was formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927.
Same facts, different subject. If the principle is your topic, the second line holds the thread. That is sentence structure (given-new packaging).
Types of Passive Voice
English has a few shapes. None of them are tense charts.
Type | Best for | Tell |
|---|---|---|
Be-passive | Most edited prose | was written, is required |
Get-passive | Speech, informal narrative | got fired, got promoted |
Agentless | Unknown or obvious actor | No by-phrase |
By-phrase | Named actor, delayed | was vetoed by the chair |
NPS treats get as a real passive marker (be or get plus a past participle). The get form is more informal.
A line like she got promoted is still passive. Don't center the article on it.
Agentless form is the ethical fork. Dropping the actor can be honest (the cave paintings were made in the Upper Paleolithic) or evasive (mistakes were made).
When Passive Voice Works
Default to active in emails, essays, and public pages. Keep passive voice when active would force dummy subjects or invented agents.
Unknown, Obvious, or Irrelevant Actors
Toronto keeps it when you cannot name the doer, or when naming them adds nothing.
My car was stolen yesterday. Two windows were broken overnight. An experimental solar plant will be built in the Australian desert.
Two burglars were arrested does not need by the police. Only police arrest people.
The Recipient Is the News
UNC's vote example puts the threshold in the subject: One hundred votes are required to pass the bill.
The same handout's birth line (Baby Sophia was delivered at 3:30 a.m.) names the child, not the obstetrician.
Purdue OWL uses the same move for a liver transplant: the operation can be the news, or the surgeons can.
Cohesion, Mystery, and Kindness
Adam at engVid teaches this as a hinge. Make the object of sentence N the subject of sentence N+1.
"A very important reason especially when you're writing is to shift focus of subject. If you want the object of your last sentence to now be the subject of your next sentence, you can use a passive to make that switch." (Adam in "The Passive: When, why, and how to use it," engVid, 2:38)
Fiction has a second legitimate hide. Brandon McNulty keeps the killer off-stage on purpose.
"Sometimes you want to hide the subject's identity. We were writing a murder mystery and we had the detective stumbling upon a crime scene… you might write a sentence like the body was dismembered." (Brandon McNulty in "How to Use PASSIVE VOICE Like a Pro," 2:57)
Kindness can spare a colleague. SJSU contrasts A mistake was made that cost the company $1,000,000 with naming Malik. UNC traces the same move to Orwell's press-release dodge.
When Not to Convert
Some passives get worse when you "fix" them. A dummy actor makes the line worse.
Keep | Why the active is worse |
|---|---|
The house was burgled. | A burglar burgled the house invents a dummy |
Two burglars were arrested. | The arresting body is already obvious |
Markus was born in 1923. | Mother-as-subject is unwieldy |
Some rules are made to be broken. | The proverb dies in active |
Elvis is rumored to be alive. | People rumor Elvis is not English |
Skip inventing an agent to satisfy a workshop ban. The house was surrounded stays as written until context supports high hedges or the police.
Scientific Writing Depends on the Audience
Lab reports and journals do not share one rule.
Purdue chemistry labs still require this voice plus third person. The lab page is dated 19 July 2011 and is still live.
The solution was heated to boiling. Not I poured, and not Heat the solution (that is a direction).
Purdue OWL is a different desk. Even in science, too much passive voice clouds meaning.
APA 7th §4.13 permits both and prefers active. APA also tells you to use I or we for your own actions. Google is blunter: lab passive does not make the work more objective.
Ask the instructor or the journal.
How to Fix Passive Voice
Skip the purge. Kill-all workshop advice treats a focus tool as a stain. Purdue OWL gives a mechanical rewrite, then a leave-it gate.
- Name the subject, the verb, and the real performer (object of by, or implied).
- Move the performer into the subject slot.
- Change be + past participle to a conjugated active verb, then drop be and by.
- The original subject becomes the object. If no honest agent exists, leave the line.
Passive | Active |
|---|---|
Mistakes were made. | We made mistakes. |
The committee's recommendation was vetoed by the presiding officer. | The presiding officer vetoed the committee's recommendation. |
Your bicycle has been damaged. (no agent) | I have damaged your bicycle. (only if that is true) |
Stop at a stronger verb when the first active rewrite is still mush. Hamilton's ladder:
- Passive: A number of things can be seen in these results.
- Active: We can see a number of things in these results.
- Stronger: These results reveal numerous findings.
That last step is a strong verbs problem. Voice already did its job.
Google notes most readers mentally convert this construction into active, so you tax them. Numbered procedures should already be imperatives: Open the configuration file.
One former editor's shop banned passive voice in reports because Tests were conducted made the work sound accidental.
"My old employer banned the passive voice in reports. 'Tests were conducted' had to be replaced by 'we tested.' The reasoning was that the passive voice made it seem like stuff just randomly happened rather than us making deliberate decisions." (u/ClevelandWomble in r/ENGLISH, May 2026)
If the missing agent is the decision, put the decision-maker in the subject. If the missing agent is the mystery, leave it.
Challenges and Limitations
Hidden Agency
Because English lets you drop the actor, passive voice is the native tongue of blame-shifting. UNC quotes Orwell's "swindles and perversions": Mistakes were made. The Exxon Company accepts that a few gallons might have been spilled.
Hamilton flags the same move when the topic is power. Waterloo warns that organizations use it to dodge responsibility.
Blame-shifting is not the same as the grammar. There were mistakes is active. Agentless is not a synonym for this construction.
Kids already know the trick. ClevelandWomble's household named it the Passive Blameless: Dad, the greenhouse window has been broken.
False ID and Checker Nagging
The loudest failure mode is calling every was, every long sentence, and every hedge "passive."
UNC myth #5: grammar checkers catch only a fraction, because the construction is not an error. Grammarly will nag be + past participle. It will not tell you whether the actor belongs on stage.
A checker will flag lines no professor docks. Trust the audience test, not the green underline.
Wordiness Without a Payoff
Passive voice adds be and a by-phrase for no gain. OWL's committee example is the pattern: Action on the bill is being considered by the committee versus The committee is considering action on the bill.
If you kept the extra words to hide a person the reader must meet, you hid a fact.
