What are some common pitfalls of passive voice and how can you fix them?

1 What is passive voice?

Passive voice is a way of constructing a sentence where the subject is acted upon by the verb, rather than performing the action. For example, in the sentence "The cake was eaten by the children", the cake is the subject and the children are the agent who ate it. In contrast, the active voice would be "The children ate the cake", where the subject and the agent are the same. Passive voice often uses a form of the verb "to be" followed by a past participle, such as "was eaten".

2 How to identify passive voice?

One way to identify passive voice is to look for the presence of a form of "to be" and a past participle in your sentence. However, this is not always reliable, as some sentences may use these elements without being passive. For example, "The cake is delicious" is not passive, even though it has "is" and a past participle. A more accurate way to identify passive voice is to ask yourself who or what is performing the action in your sentence. If you can't find the agent, or if the agent is hidden in a prepositional phrase (such as "by the children"), then your sentence is likely passive.

3 How to avoid or fix passive voice?

The simplest way to avoid or fix passive voice is to rewrite your sentence in the active voice, where the subject and the agent are the same. To do this, you need to identify the agent and make it the subject of your sentence, and then change the verb accordingly. For example, you can change "The cake was eaten by the children" to "The children ate the cake". However, sometimes you may not know or want to mention the agent, or you may want to emphasize the action rather than the actor. In these cases, you can use other strategies to improve your passive voice sentences, such as adding detail, using a more specific verb, or rearranging the sentence structure.

4 When is passive voice acceptable or preferred?

Although passive voice is generally discouraged in academic writing, there are certain situations where it is accepted or even preferred. For instance, you may use passive voice to focus on the result or object of an action, avoid assigning blame, create a sense of objectivity or neutrality, or follow the conventions of your discipline or genre. For example, "A new vaccine was developed by the researchers" emphasizes the importance of the vaccine rather than the researchers; "Mistakes were made in the experiment" sounds less accusatory than "We made mistakes in the experiment"; "The data were analyzed using SPSS" exudes a more scientific tone than "We analyzed the data using SPSS"; and some fields of study or types of publications may favor passive voice over active voice in particular sections or contexts.

5 How to balance passive and active voice?

The key to using passive and active voice effectively in your academic writing is to balance them according to your purpose, audience, and style. You should use active voice whenever possible, as it makes your writing clear, direct, and engaging. However, you should also be aware of the situations where passive voice is appropriate or necessary, and use it sparingly and strategically. You should also vary your sentence structure and avoid repeating the same passive or active constructions. By doing so, you can improve your sentence structure and variety and enhance your academic writing skills.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?