Using Passive Voice in English: When and How to Shift Focus in Sentences

Grammar rules can feel rigid, but passive voice is one area where the “rules” are more nuanced than most people realize. You’ve probably been told to avoid passive constructions in your writing – and for good reason. But passive voice isn’t inherently bad. In fact, knowing when and how to use it is a skill that separates competent writers from strong ones. Whether you’re writing a lab report, a research paper, or a professional document, understanding passive constructions gives you more control over how your sentences communicate meaning.

What passive voice actually means 🔗

In a standard English sentence, the subject performs the action. That’s called the active voice. For example: The scientist conducted the experiment. Here, “the scientist” is the subject doing the action.

In a passive construction, that structure is reversed – the object of the action moves to the front of the sentence, and the doer (if mentioned at all) is pushed to the end or removed entirely. So the same sentence becomes: The experiment was conducted by the scientist. Or even just: The experiment was conducted.

As the UNC Writing Center explains, a passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence – meaning whoever or whatever is performing the action is no longer in the grammatical subject position. This is a stylistic choice, not a grammatical error.

It’s also worth clearing up a common misconception: not every sentence with a form of “to be” (is, was, were, been, are) is passive. “She was tired” is not passive – there’s no action being performed on a recipient. The passive voice specifically requires a form of “to be” + a past participle, like was written, is known, or were tested.

Why passive voice exists – and when it’s useful 🔗

Passive constructions aren’t arbitrary. They serve a real communicative purpose: they let you shift focus from the doer to the action or the result. There are several situations where this is not just acceptable but preferable.

When the doer is unknown 🔗

Sometimes you simply don’t know who performed an action. Passive voice handles this naturally. Consider: The cave paintings of Lascaux were made in the Upper Old Stone Age. We don’t know exactly who made them, so there’s no subject to put in the active position. Forcing an active construction here would require fabricating or guessing a subject, which weakens the sentence.

When the doer is irrelevant 🔗

In many contexts, who did something matters far less than what was done. As the University of Toronto Writing Advice notes, sentences like “An experimental solar power plant will be built in the Australian desert” are clearer in passive form because the builder is less important than the project itself.

When you want to emphasize the result or recipient 🔗

Passive constructions naturally put the result or recipient of an action first, giving it more weight. If you want your reader to focus on what happened to something rather than who caused it, passive voice does that work for you. Compare:

• Active: The government enforces strict environmental regulations.
• Passive: Strict environmental regulations are enforced by the government.

The passive version foregrounds the regulations themselves, which may be exactly what you want if those regulations – not the government’s role – are the topic of your discussion.

To maintain an impersonal, objective tone 🔗

In formal and scientific writing, the passive voice helps writers avoid personal pronouns and present information as objective fact rather than personal perspective. Instead of “I dissolved the sodium hydroxide in water,” a lab report reads: “The sodium hydroxide was dissolved in water.” The focus stays on the procedure, not the researcher.

Forming passive constructions correctly 🔗

The structure of a passive sentence follows a consistent formula:

[Object/Recipient] + [form of “to be”] + [past participle of main verb] + (by + agent, optional)

The tense of the sentence is carried by the “to be” verb, while the main verb stays in its past participle form. Here’s how that looks across different tenses:

• Present simple: The data is analyzed daily.
• Past simple: The report was submitted on Friday.
• Present perfect: The samples have been collected.
• Past perfect: The results had been recorded before the meeting.
• Future simple: The findings will be published next year.
• Modal passive: The solution must be stored at room temperature.

Choosing the right tense is critical. In scientific and academic writing, the past simple passive is most commonly used in methods sections to describe completed procedures (“The solution was heated to 80°C”), while the present simple passive appears in results and general statements (“Carbon dioxide is released during combustion”).

The “by” phrase – include it or drop it? 🔗

The agent (doer) can be included using “by” or omitted entirely. The choice depends on whether the agent adds useful information. In “The experiment was carried out by the research team,” the agent is present but adds little – you can cut it. But in “The theory was first proposed by Einstein,” the agent matters significantly and should be kept.

A practical tip from Loyola Law School’s writing guide: you can often spot passive voice by looking for sentences ending with a “by…” phrase or for a “to be” verb followed immediately by a past participle. Both are strong signals that you’re in passive territory.

Active vs. passive: how to choose 🔗

The core question is always: what do I want my reader to focus on? Active voice foregrounds the doer; passive voice foregrounds the action, result, or recipient. Neither is universally better – the right choice depends on your purpose, audience, and discipline.

Prefer active voice when clarity and directness matter 🔗

For most non-scientific writing – essays, reports, journalism, business communication – active voice is the stronger default. It’s more concise, more direct, and easier to follow. Compare:

• Passive: A number of things can be seen in these results. (9 words)
• Active: These results reveal numerous findings. (5 words)

The active version says the same thing in almost half the words. Over the course of a full paper or report, that difference accumulates significantly.

Active voice also assigns clear responsibility. This matters in historical, legal, and social writing, where accountability is the point. “Mistakes were made” is a famous example of passive voice used to obscure agency – it omits who made the mistakes entirely. In contrast, “The administration made serious mistakes” is direct and accountable. As Hamilton College’s writing center points out, passive voice removes agency, which becomes particularly problematic when discussing power dynamics or social responsibility.

Prefer passive voice in scientific and process-oriented writing 🔗

The scientific community has long relied on passive constructions, particularly in methods and materials sections. The rationale is well established: passive voice allows researchers to describe procedures without centering themselves, creating the appearance of objective, replicable science rather than personal action.

Standard scientific passive constructions look like:

• The samples were incubated at 37°C for 24 hours.
• This solution was then titrated with hydrochloric acid.
• The data were analyzed using SPSS software.

However, as the University of California Riverside’s writing center notes, many science disciplines have shifted toward accepting active voice – even the first person “we” – in published research papers, particularly in results and discussion sections. Always check your discipline’s conventions and your instructor’s preferences.

Process descriptions and technical writing 🔗

Beyond pure science, passive constructions are standard in process descriptions – any writing that explains how something is made, done, or operates without focusing on a specific person doing it. Instruction manuals, technical documentation, and procedural texts routinely use passive voice because the process itself is what matters:

• The components are assembled in the following order.
• The file must be saved before the program is closed.
• Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.

In these cases, using active voice would require specifying an agent (“You must save the file” or “The technician assembles the components”) that is either obvious, irrelevant, or unknown – making passive the cleaner, more appropriate choice.

Common pitfalls to avoid 🔗

Passive voice causes problems when it’s used by default rather than by design. The University of Toronto identifies two major risks: vagueness (failing to specify who did something when it actually matters) and wordiness (using more words than necessary to express a simple action). Overusing passive constructions throughout a piece of writing also creates a flat, lifeless prose style that’s harder to read and less engaging.

A useful self-check: if you read a passive sentence and find yourself wondering “but who did this?” – and the answer matters – rewrite it in active voice. If the answer doesn’t matter or isn’t known, passive is fine. Make the choice consciously, not habitually.

The University of York’s academic language guide recommends reviewing your writing for the balance of active and passive voice. A text with too many passive constructions feels impersonal and hard to follow; a text with no passive constructions at all may sound inappropriately casual for scientific or formal academic contexts. The goal is purposeful variety.

A quick reference: active vs. passive at a glance 🔗

To make the decision easier, here’s a practical summary of when each voice typically works best:

Use active voice when the doer is known and relevant, when you want directness and concision, when assigning accountability matters, and in most humanities essays, business writing, and journalism.

Use passive voice when the doer is unknown or unimportant, when you want to emphasize the result or recipient of an action, when following scientific or technical writing conventions, when describing processes or procedures, and when avoiding first-person for formal or objective tone.

What do you think? When you review your own academic writing, do you tend to overuse passive voice out of habit – or do you avoid it entirely without considering whether it might actually serve your meaning better in certain sections? And in disciplines like scientific research or law, where passive voice has long been the norm, do you think that convention genuinely serves clarity – or does it sometimes obscure who is responsible for what?

References

1. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/passive-voice/
2. https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/revising/passive-voice/
3. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/active_and_passive_voice/more_about_passive_voice.html
4. https://guides.library.lls.edu/c.php?g=1066706&p=7765334
5. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/active_and_passive_voice/active_versus_passive_voice.html
6. https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/seven-sins-of-writing/1
7. https://gwc.ucr.edu/sites/default/files/2019-01/Scientific-Writing-Active-and-Passive-Voice.pdf
8. https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-language/voice