![]() The key here is to use the passive voice strategically, not accidentally. One is untethered from any person or decision, while the other clearly casts blame or responsibility, depending on how you want to look at it. Look at the difference between “People were laid off” versus “The CEO laid people off.” The dictionary goes on to explain that sometimes the passive voice is maligned because it can be seen as a way of linguistically dodging responsibility. It is also helpful for instances when the doer of an action (also known as the agent) is unknown.” Merriam-Webster even extolls the passive voice in certain instances: “(I)t is useful for those instances when you want to emphasize the fact of an action having taken place rather than who performed the action. You don’t need to root out every single occurrence of it like a weed in your flower garden. Overusing the passive voice can make your writing dull, overly long and monotonous rather than punchy and concise.Īll that said, the passive voice is still an important part of the English language. Doing things is more interesting than having things happen. The same is true even in business writing. Do you enjoy watching a passive protagonist who is merely acted upon? No! You want someone who is going to take the ring to Mount Doom rather than sitting at home in their hobbit hole. Think about reading a novel or watching a movie. It gives the reader a clearer idea of who is doing what without needing to go back and re-read a sentence or wonder who wrote the article, to use our above example. ![]() It’s shorter, removing additional helping verbs and focusing on one strong verb. Simply put, active voice is usually the clearer option. However, these words can also just be part of the construction of various past tenses, so this isn’t a fool- proof identification method. You can often (but not always) identify passive voice by its use of forms of the verb “to be.” Because English is a nightmare of a language when it comes to irregular verbs, this includes words like “is,” “was” or “had been.” We merely know that the article was acted upon and poofed into being. Was it me, a ghost, an AI program? No clue. “The article was written” is passive voice. It does not take the action itself, but it is having something happen to it. Passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is acted upon. In other words, the main actor in the sentence does the main action.įor example, “I wrote the article” is in the active voice. Active voice is when the subject of the sentence performs the action of the story. We’re going to have to throw a few grammar terms at you for this next bit.įirst, let’s define active voice.
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