Your grammar teacher banned the passive; your science journal requires it. The truth about English’s most debated construction — what it is, what it is not, and when each voice wins.
THE SHORT ANSWER
In the active voice, the subject does the action: ‘The editor cut the paragraph.’ In the passive voice, the subject receives it: ‘The paragraph was cut (by the editor).’ Neither is an error. Active is the better default for clarity and pace; passive earns its place when the actor is unknown, unimportant, or diplomatically inconvenient — and in much scientific writing. The real sin is not passivity; it is hiding who did what when the reader needs to know.
Few topics in writing advice generate more heat than the passive voice — partly because so much of the advice is wrong. The passive is routinely confused with the past tense, with any use of the verb ‘to be’, and with weak writing generally. Let us clear the ground: the passive is a precise grammatical construction, and recognising it reliably is a two-part test.
The two-part test
A clause is passive when (1) some form of be (or, informally, get) combines with a past participle — was cut, is known, got promoted — and (2) the person or thing doing the action is either demoted to an optional ‘by’ phrase or deleted entirely. ‘The window was broken by the wind’ is passive; ‘The window was broken’ meaning shattered, describing a state, is not a passive action at all — a distinction even style guides fumble.
| Active | Passive | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| The committee approved the budget. | The budget was approved (by the committee). | Focus shifts from actors to the budget |
| Someone has moved the ladder. | The ladder has been moved. | Actor unknown — passive is the honest choice |
| We made mistakes. | Mistakes were made. | Actor deleted — the infamous diplomatic passive |
When active wins
Default to active whenever a person acts and the reader should know who. Active sentences are usually shorter, assign responsibility, and carry momentum: ‘Marketing launches the campaign in May’ beats ‘The campaign will be launched by Marketing in May’ on every count. In instructions, journalism and business writing, active voice is the professional standard precisely because accountability is the point.
When passive is the right tool
Passive is correct, often preferable, in four situations: the actor is unknown (‘My bike was stolen’); the actor is obvious or irrelevant (‘He was arrested’ — by police, obviously); the receiver matters more (‘The bridge was completed in 1893’ — the bridge is the story); and the conventions of scientific method writing, where ‘the samples were heated to 90°C’ keeps attention on procedure, not personnel. Skilled writers do not avoid the passive — they choose it, which is a different thing entirely.
The passive is not a mistake. The mistake is using it to make responsibility disappear.
Frequently asked questions
Is ‘Mistakes were made’ always evasive?
It is the textbook diplomatic passive: everyone knows whose mistakes, and the construction exists to avoid saying it. Sometimes diplomacy is legitimate; in apologies that require ownership, it reliably backfires.
Does a grammar checker identify the passive correctly?
Often not. Many tools flag any ‘be + adjective’ or past-tense sentence as passive. Run the two-part test yourself before accepting the flag.
