“Avoid the passive voice” is one of the most repeated pieces of writing advice — and one of the most misunderstood. Passive voice isn’t a grammatical error. It’s a choice. The skill is knowing when it helps and when it hurts.
This guide shows you how to tell the two apart, why active voice usually reads better, and the specific situations where passive voice is the right call.
What is active voice?
In active voice, the subject performs the action:
The team shipped the feature.
Subject (the team) → verb (shipped) → object (the feature). It’s direct, short, and clear about who did what.
What is passive voice?
In passive voice, the subject receives the action:
The feature was shipped by the team.
The object of the action (the feature) becomes the subject of the sentence, and the real actor (the team) gets pushed to the end — or dropped entirely:
The feature was shipped.
Notice the giveaway: a form of to be (was) plus a past participle (shipped), often followed by by….
How to spot passive voice
Look for these two signals together:
- A “to be” verb — is, are, was, were, be, been, being.
- A past participle — usually a verb ending in -ed (reviewed, sent, decided) or an irregular form (written, sent, made, done).
If you can add “…by zombies” after the verb and the sentence still makes grammatical sense, it’s passive:
The report was reviewed (by zombies). ✅ passive The team reviewed the report (by zombies). ❌ active
Why active voice usually wins
Active voice is the default for clear writing because it is:
- Shorter. “The team reviewed the report” (5 words) beats “The report was reviewed by the team” (7 words).
- Clearer about responsibility. Active voice names the actor, so no one hides behind “mistakes were made.”
- Easier to read. Fewer words and a direct subject-verb-object order lift your readability score and lower reading time.
Passive: “The report was reviewed by the team before it was sent to the client.” Active: “The team reviewed the report before sending it to the client.”
The active version is shorter, punchier, and leaves no doubt about who did what.
When passive voice is the right choice
Passive voice earns its place when:
- The actor is unknown or irrelevant. “The store was robbed last night.” You may not know who did it — and it doesn’t matter to the sentence.
- The action matters more than the actor. “The vaccine was administered to 2 million people.” The focus is the result, not the nurses.
- You want to be tactful. “A mistake was made” softens blame — useful in diplomacy, risky in accountability.
- The receiver is the real subject of your paragraph. In science writing, “The samples were heated to 90°C” keeps the focus on the experiment, not the experimenter.
Good writers use passive voice deliberately, not by accident.
A quick before-and-after
Before (passive, wordy): “It has been decided by management that the deadline will be extended, and all affected teams will be notified by email.”
After (active, direct): “Management extended the deadline. We’ll email every affected team.”
Same meaning, half the friction.
Put it into practice
The goal isn’t zero passive voice — it’s intentional passive voice. As you edit, convert passive sentences to active unless you have a specific reason to keep them.
When you’re done, paste your draft into ProseTool’s readability score checker to see how your edits affect clarity, and use the word counter to confirm you’ve trimmed the extra words that passive voice tends to add. For a broader editing checklist, read how to improve your readability score.