Active vs Passive Voice
Way back when we wrote some tips for trimming down your essays, we suggested you avoid passive voice whenever possible. Some of you have asked what exactly we mean by “passive voice” and whether it’s ever appropriate to use it.
Active voice
In an active sentence, the subject performs the action: “Gilbert studied his notes.” Gilbert is the subject of the sentence and the action he performs is to study. Another example: “Lauren broke the pencil.” Here, Lauren is the subject, and the action she performs is to break.
Passive voice
In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action: “The notes were studied by Gilbert.” Even though the notes aren’t performing any action, the focus is on them rather than Gilbert, the one who is doing the studying. Likewise, “The pencil was broken by Lauren” is also passive. The pencil receives all the focus of the sentence, even though Lauren was the one who broke it.
Sentences written in passive voice are not technically incorrect, but they are not usually the most efficient way of wording a sentence. “The notes were studied by Gilbert” is a much more clunky — and, consequently, confusing — way of describing what took place.
So should you avoid passive voice altogether?
You should only use the passive voice when you have a good reason for doing so. In your lab reports, for example, you will probably find yourself using passive voice because you are meant to emphasize the process rather than yourself, the researcher. As a result, your teacher will often prefer you to write, “The experiment was run four times” rather than “I ran the experiment four times.”
Another time it is appropriate to use passive voice is when you do not know who performed the action. For example, “The mysterious letter was left on my doorstep” is correct because we do not know who left the letter. Likewise, because passive voice de-emphasizes the subject, some people use passive voice to avoid taking responsibility for their actions — “Mistakes were made” (Well, who made them?) or “The paper was poorly written” — (Yes, but didn’t you write it?)
In the end, like most matters of style, the choice is yours to make. Just remember to have intention behind each word of your writing — use passive voice with purpose, not because you couldn’t think of any other way to say it.
