My chair says I use too much passive voice. How do I use active voice instead of passive?

The topic of this post was selected because consistent issues have been noticed by me among former students, colleagues, and graduate students. Passive voice, discussed later, is used a great deal in their writing, and much space is wasted and much strength is lost.

Guess what? The above paragraph uses more words than necessary and is more complicated than necessary because of the sentence structures and those extra words. The above paragraph, which we’ll return to later, is an example of passive voice. This article focuses on passive voice and its more preferred sibling, active voice. Here, you’ll learn what they are and, more importantly, when to use both intentionally.

Voice

Voice might be a new term to you when it comes to grammar. Simply said, grammatical voice regards the relationship between the subject and action verb of a sentence. That’s it.

So if we carry the definition of voice a step further, we need to understand that two relationships exist: an active relationship and a passive one.

Grammatical voice regards the relationshipbetween the subject and action verb of a sentence. 

Digression: Would you describe yourself as an active person? What makes you answer the way you do? In most matters, I wouldn’t describe myself as an active person; I don’t really do much of anything–no exercising, hiking, etc. That’s why I’m a bit laid back, chill, passive: stuff just happens to me. If you identify as active, then you’re the opposite. You actually do something, whatever it may be. Keep this concept in mind.

Active Voice

Now, let’s connect the dots. In a sentence written in active voice, the subject PERFORMS/DOES the action of the verb. In other words, the subject is actually doing something. See how I made that connection? Let’s look at a few sentences before we examine passive voice:

• The researchers conducted several studies over the course of three months.
• Any remaining participants will then indicate interest in the second phase.
• The results prove a correlation between the two elements. 

In each of the three sentences above, the subject (in bold) is performing the action verb (underlined): the researchers are the ones DOING the conducting, the participants are the ones DOING the indicating, and the results are what is DOING the proving. Notice that each sentence uses a different tense, which should remind you that voice has nothing to do with tense. Past, present, or future is irrelevant; instead, focus on the relationship between the subject and the verb.

Passive Voice

In a sentence written in passive voice, the subject RECEIVES the action of the verb. It’s not actually doing anything. Let’s take a look at those same example sentences. But this time, I’ll flip them to passive.

• Several studies were conducted BY the researchers over the course of three months.
• Interest in the second phasewill be indicated BY any remaining participants.
• A correlation between the two elements is proven BY the results.

So now, if we look at the subjects, we’ll see that none of them are performing the action of the verb: the studies aren’t conducting, the interest isn’t indicating, the correlation isn’tproving. Instead, the studies are being conducted, the interest is being indicated, and the correlation is being proven. Notice that the passive voice sentences are slightly longer than their active counterparts: an extra verb (were, be, is) and the word by.

Now imagine reading a whole text that’s written in passive voice. It can be exhausting. Passive stretches our sentences and pushes the acting agent either to the end of the sentence or completely erases it: Several studies were conducted. So we should become more conscious of what we’re writing and how we’re writing it.

Applying active and passive to writing

Let’s return to the opening paragraph:

The topic of this post was selected because consistent issues have been noticed by me among former students, colleagues, and graduate students. Passive voice, discussed later, is used a great deal in their writing, and much space is wasted and much strength is lost.

Now, let’s convert it to active voice.

I selected the topic of this post because I have noticed consistent issues among former students, colleagues, and graduate students. They use passive voice, discussed later, a great deal in their writing, which wastes much space and loses much strength.

Without a doubt, the active paragraph is more direct. The subjects are doing the actions of the verbs. Because of its more direct nature, active voice is preferred over passive voice. However, as the previous sentence indicates, sometimes passive has a purpose:

1. If you’re trying to emphasize the receiver of the action and NOT the acting agent, use passive.
2. If the performer of the action is unknown or irrelevant, use passive.

So now, with the knowledge of the two voices, write with intention. Choose when passive is appropriate for your purposes. For instance, I could rewrite the opening paragraph, mixing active with passive.

The topic of this post was selected because I have noticed consistent issues among former students, colleagues, and graduate students. Passive voice is useda great deal in their writing, which wastes much space and loses much strength. 

I decided to shift the first verb back to passive because I simply didn’t want to repeat the Iand wanted the introduction to focus on the topic itself, not on me. I made the second change for a similar reason: rather than shift the focus to the students and colleagues, I chose to keep it on passive voice, the article’s topic.

Spread the word (…or let the word be spread)

If you’re not already doing so, write with intention. Sprinkle a little passive in with your active voice. It shows that you are a conscious writer.