Passive voice has a reputation as the enemy of good writing. That reputation is half-earned. Used deliberately, passive voice has legitimate purposes — particularly in scientific and academic writing. Used carelessly, it drains energy from your sentences, obscures who is responsible for what, and makes your writing feel evasive.
This guide explains exactly what passive voice is, how to spot it, when to use it, and how to fix it when it hurts your writing.
What Passive Voice Actually Is
In an active sentence, the subject performs the action: "The researcher conducted the experiment." In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action: "The experiment was conducted by the researcher."
The grammatical signature of passive voice is a form of the verb to be (is, are, was, were, be, been, being) followed by a past participle (conducted, written, approved, given). The agent — whoever did the action — is either pushed to the end of the sentence with "by" or omitted entirely.
Passive: "Mistakes were made." (By whom? Unknown.)
Active: "The finance team made three calculation errors." (Clear responsibility.)
How to Identify It
Ask two questions about each sentence:
- Is the verb a form of to be + past participle?
- Could you add "by [someone]" after the verb and have it make sense?
If both answers are yes, the sentence is passive. "The report was submitted" — was submitted (yes), by whom? (you could say "by the team") — passive.
Note: not every sentence with "was" is passive. "She was exhausted" uses "was" as a linking verb, not passive construction. The test is whether a past participle follows it describing an action done to the subject.
When Passive Voice Weakens Your Writing
Passive voice becomes a problem when it is used as a default rather than a choice. The most common weaknesses it introduces:
- Hidden agency: "It was decided that the project would be cancelled." Decided by whom? Passive voice is frequently used to avoid accountability.
- Wordiness: Passive constructions are typically longer. Every "was [verb]ed" can usually be replaced with a direct verb.
- Weak verbs: Passive sentences push the real action into a past participle and demote the main verb to "was" — one of the most colourless verbs in English.
- Slow pacing: A paragraph full of passive sentences reads as hesitant and bureaucratic. It signals that the writer is hedging rather than asserting.
Before and after examples
Passive: "The budget was reviewed by the committee, and cuts were recommended to three departments."
Active: "The committee reviewed the budget and recommended cuts to three departments."
The active version is shorter, clearer, and puts the agent (the committee) where readers expect it — at the front of the sentence.
When Passive Voice Is Acceptable
Passive voice is not always the wrong choice. There are specific contexts where it is preferred or even required:
- Scientific methods sections: "Samples were collected between March and May 2024." In formal scientific writing, the researcher is conventionally omitted from methods descriptions to keep the focus on the procedure rather than the individual.
- Unknown agent: "The building was constructed in 1887." If the agent is genuinely unknown or irrelevant, passive voice is natural.
- Emphasis on the receiver: "The president was arrested this morning." The news is about the president, not about who made the arrest. Starting with "Police arrested the president" shifts emphasis to the wrong subject.
- Maintaining topic continuity: When the object of one sentence becomes the subject of the next, passive voice can create smoother transitions: "The committee approved the policy. The policy was then distributed to all departments."
- Deliberate vagueness (legal and diplomatic writing): "Mistakes were acknowledged." In some professional contexts, omitting the agent is a deliberate stylistic choice, not a weakness.
How to Convert Passive to Active
A simple three-step process:
- Find the agent (who or what performed the action). It may be in a "by…" phrase or implied.
- Move the agent to the subject position at the start of the sentence.
- Change the verb from "was [past participle]" to the direct past tense.
Passive: "The findings were published by the research team in June."
Step 1: Agent = "the research team"
Step 2: Move it to the front
Step 3: "published" → "published" (already past tense)
Active: "The research team published the findings in June."
The Right Balance
A useful target for most academic and professional writing: keep passive voice below 20% of your sentences. That leaves room for the legitimate uses described above while keeping the majority of your writing direct and clear.
If you find yourself writing passive sentences habitually — especially when you are avoiding saying who did something — that is the sign to revise. Clarity is not just a stylistic preference. In academic writing, it is a mark of intellectual rigour.
The question is never "is this sentence passive?" — it is "does the passive construction serve this sentence, or am I using it to avoid being direct?"
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