TL;DR:
Active voice puts the doer first: "The committee approved the plan." Passive puts the receiver first: "The plan was approved."
Active is usually clearer and shorter, because it shows who does what.
Passive is right when the doer is unknown, unimportant or when the action is the point, as in science methods.
Read this sentence: "Mistakes were made." Who made them? The sentence does not say, and that is exactly how passive voice works. It can leave the doer out. Sometimes that is useful and sometimes it is a way to dodge. Learning to spot the difference makes your writing clearer and gives you control over where the reader's attention goes.
Who does what
Every sentence about an action has a doer and a receiver. In an active sentence the doer is the subject: "The committee approved the plan." In a passive sentence the receiver is the subject: "The plan was approved by the committee."
You can spot the passive by its pattern: a form of to be (is, was, were, been, being) plus a past participle (approved, written, taken). The doer, if named, comes after by, and it can be dropped entirely: "The plan was approved."
Active | Passive |
|---|---|
The wind knocked down the fence. | The fence was knocked down by the wind. |
Scientists measured the temperature. | The temperature was measured. |
The coach picked her for the team. | She was picked for the team. |
Why active is usually the better default
Clarity. The reader sees who does what without hunting.
Brevity. Active sentences are usually shorter, because they drop was and by.
Energy. Verbs with a clear doer feel direct and alive.
Honesty. Naming the doer makes you commit to who is responsible.
Worked example: rewriting a passive paragraph
Here is a paragraph about a school fundraiser, written mostly in the passive.
A bake sale was organised by the student council. Flyers were printed and posted around the school. Over two hundred cookies were baked by volunteers. The money was counted, and a donation was made to the animal shelter.
Rewrite it one sentence at a time. First find the doer in each.
"A bake sale was organised by the student council" has the doer in the by phrase. Flip it: The student council organised a bake sale.
"Flyers were printed and posted around the school" has no doer. The paragraph does not say who. Add it if you know: Volunteers printed flyers and posted them around the school.
"Over two hundred cookies were baked by volunteers": Volunteers baked over two hundred cookies. Now "volunteers" appears twice, so vary the second: Other volunteers baked over two hundred cookies.
"The money was counted, and a donation was made to the animal shelter" has no doer. If the treasurer did it: The treasurer counted the money and donated it to the animal shelter.
The revised paragraph:
The student council organised a bake sale. Volunteers printed flyers and posted them around the school, and other volunteers baked over two hundred cookies. The treasurer counted the money and donated it to the animal shelter.
Check the numbers: the original had four sentences and 38 words, the revision has three sentences and 36 words, and now you know who did every job. One caution: the doers named above (volunteers, the treasurer) were added for the example. In real writing, only name the doer if you know who it was.
When passive is the right choice
The doer is unknown. "My bike was stolen." You do not know who took it.
The doer does not matter. "The bridge was built in 1932." The builders are not the point.
The receiver is the topic. If the paragraph is about the plan, "The plan was approved by the committee" keeps "the plan" as the subject across sentences.
Science methods. "The solution was heated to 60 °C." The experiment, not the person, is what the reader needs to repeat. Many science teachers expect this style, so follow your class.
Tip: To find passives in your own writing, search for "was", "were" and "by". Then ask, in each case, who does the action and whether naming them would help.
Mixing the two inside a paragraph
A paragraph does not have to be all one voice. A useful trick is to choose the voice that keeps your subject steady from one sentence to the next. If the paragraph is about the new library, write "The library opened in March. Local builders had finished it a month early." Both sentences keep attention on the same topic or move naturally to the next.
Switching the grammatical subject every sentence without a reason makes the reader re-orient each time. Choose the voice by asking what the reader should be thinking about at the start of the sentence, because the subject is the first thing they meet.
Passive as a way to dodge
Look at "Mistakes were made" again. The passive hides the doer, and in some writing that hides responsibility. In an essay about history, "The land was taken" says less than "The government took the land". Ask whether the missing doer is a choice you are making on purpose.
Try it this week
Take a paragraph from your last assignment and mark every passive verb. For each, decide: keep it (and know why) or flip it. If you want practice, ask DuckyHelper to read passages aloud and quiz you on which sentences are passive, then check yourself against the pattern above.
Frequently asked questions
Is passive voice a grammar error?
No. It is grammatically correct. The question is whether it is the best choice for the reader in that sentence.
Does "is being" always mean passive?
"Is being" plus a past participle is passive ("is being repaired"). "Is being" plus an adjective is not: "He is being silly."
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