Your grammar checker may accuse you
of bad writing every time you choose a passive-voice
verb, but be assured that
most usage experts will not. The rule that writers should
“prefer” active verbs means just that: Use the active voice
unless you have a good reason for choosing the passive.
ACTIVE [SUBJECT DOES THE ACTION]
The committee reached a decision.
PASSIVE [SUBJECT RECEIVES THE ACTION]
A decision was reached by the committee.
Why should we prefer
active verbs? The experts agree on the reasons. Passive
sentences are wordier than their active counterparts.
They fail to emphasize or sometimes even name the actor
(often deceptively, as in Top-secret information was
inadvertently misplaced). And, in the words of Bryan
Garner, the passive voice “subverts the normal word
order for an English sentence, making it harder for
readers to process the information” (483).
Usage experts also
agree on the major exceptions to the rule. All agree
that the passive is appropriate when the actor is
unknown, obvious, or irrelevant. Consider the following
examples from The American Heritage Book of English
Usage:
A car was broken into last night on Laurel Road.
Office mail is now delivered twice a day.
(57)
The passive also
works well when the emphasis belongs on the receiver of
the action, as in these examples, given by Richard
Lederer and Richard Dowis:
The meeting was concluded after two hours of heated
debate.
The criminal was arrested, tried, convicted, and
sentenced to prison. (101)
In scientific
writing, emphasizing the receiver of the action lends an
air of scientific objectivity.
Participants in the study were asked to respond to a
Rorschach test.
Occasionally the
passive voice may be used to smooth a transition from
old information to new (by placing old information in
the subject position). The American Heritage Book of
English Usage offers a good example from a passage
by the astronomer Robert P. Kirschner:
. . . Eventually the fuel runs out, and the inner
core of the red giant congeals into a white dwarf.
A white dwarf is protected from total gravitational
collapse not by the kinetic pressure of gases. . . .
(58)
To sum up: There is
nothing wrong grammatically with the passive voice, and
for certain purposes it can be quite useful. So when
your grammar checker flags a passive sentence, think
carefully. If you have chosen the passive for a good
reason, let it stand. If not, revise.
