It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences - June Casagrande 2010

The writing was ignored by the reader: Passives

From time to time, a writer will post something like this on a writers' Internet message board:

Help! I can't get this sentence out of the passive: "Emma was walking down the street."

The writer may add that she knows this sentence is passive because it has a form of to be (in this case was) coupled with a word that ends in ing: walking. There's just one problem. The sentence is not passive. Neither is this:

Sue had been considering doing some thinking about being more accepting and becoming more loving.

Horrible, yes. Passive, no. At least, not in the sense we mean when we talk about the passive voice.

There are two myths about passives that we need to debunk right away:

1. Passive structure is bad.

2. Passive structure is any action-impaired sentence that uses an -ing or -ed verb with a form of to be (like is or was).

Caveats about passives have been overstated and distorted. Yes, passives can be awful. Yes, they're a serious problem for some novice writers. Yes, you need to be on the lookout for them. But this doesn't mean passives are always bad. They're quite useful when used wisely—indispensable, even. So here's how you should look at them. It will probably sound familiar: passive voice is a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled writer, but it's brain-numbing poison in the hands of an unskilled writer. So you should understand the concept and use the passive only by choice. Learn to recognize passive sentences so you can consider whether they would be better in the active voice.

Luckily, the concept is easy to master.

Here's the best way to understand passive voice: it occurs when the object of an action is made the grammatical subject of a sentence. (Technically, it's more precise to say that the passive occurs when the object of a transitive verb is made the subject of a sentence. But if that makes your eyes glaze over, stick with the first definition.) Compare these two sentences:

Ned made the coffee.

The coffee was made by Ned.

In the first example, we have someone performing an action, followed by the action itself, followed by the thing being acted upon: subject + verb + object. In the second example, the thing being acted upon, the object, is made the subject of our sentence. That's passive structure. Let's look at some more examples:

Active: Becky threw the ball.

Passive: The ball was thrown by Becky.

Active: Manny gave Ralph the gun.

Passive: The gun was given to Ralph by Manny.

Active: Everybody loves pasta.

Passive: Pasta is loved by everybody.

Active: The monster ate Victoria.

Passive: Victoria was eaten by the monster.

Any of the passives in these examples might be the best choice under certain circumstances. That last one in particular seems to work well in its passive form.

Now that we understand passives, we know that our first example, Emma was walking, isn't passive, because Emma is both the doer of the action and the grammatical subject of the sentence.

Let's practice. Convert the following passive sentences into active form:

The cake was baked by Rodney.

The compliments were appreciated by the hostess.

The money was stolen.

Okay, that was sneaky of me. I threw in that last one to illustrate an important point: Often, a passive construction will contain a nice little by phrase that tells you who or what is performing the action.

But that by phrase is optional. Writers often drop it. And you can't convert the sentence into active form unless you know who or what should be your new sentence's subject. You can change the first two into active voice because we know that Rodney baked the cake and the hostess appreciated the compliments. But we don't know who stole the money.

If we really want to make this sentence active, we can come up with a subject. We can say Judy stole the money if we know for a fact that Judy did it. If we don't know, we can say someone stole the money or a thief stole the money. But in a situation like this, the best option is often to leave the sentence in the passive. In fact, that's when passives are best: anytime you want to downplay the doer of an action.

The president was re-elected emphasizes the president in a way that an active form such as The voters re-elected the president does not. In the first sentence, you're talking about the president. In the second, you're talking about voters, which may not be what you want.

Sometimes, passives are the greatest thing in the world:

Professor Persimmon is considered a leading economic expert.

Meryl Streep is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of her generation.

Taking those out of the passive would change the character of the sentences considerably:

People consider Professor Persimmon an expert.

American moviegoers regard Meryl Streep as one of the greatest actors of her generation.

These flip-flops put the focus in a different place entirely. They call attention to the missing information, leading to questions like What people? Which moviegoers? Who are these folks who get to decide such things, and why didn't anybody ask my opinion?

By de-emphasizing these issues, passives let a writer be sneaky. For example, if a writer is too lazy to actually find out Professor Persimmon's credentials, a passive is considered can be a convenient weasel-like way to make unsubstantiated assertions.

But, once again, we come right back to our guiding light of Reader-serving writing. Sidestepping certain questions—like Who anointed Professor Persimmon a leading expert?—can be a fine way to keep the focus where it needs to be in order to best serve the Reader. If your article is about the economy, there's probably no reason you must spend time discussing your economist's credentials or who bestowed them on him. If you're working in the Reader's best interest and have thus earned his trust, you don't have to verify every value judgment your story might make. You can get on to more relevant information instead. In that case, a passive sentence about Persimmon's credentials is just fine.

Let's do two more quick practice sentences. Convert these into active form:

Kevin was being watched.

Kevin was being coy.

How'd you do? Your answer for the first one should look something like Someone was watching Kevin or Nelson was watching Kevin or The voyeur was watching Kevin. Your answer for the second one— well, as you may have guessed, it was a trick question.

The first sentence is passive. The second one is not. Remember our simple definition of passive voice: when the object of an action is made the grammatical subject of the sentence. We can easily see that an action is taking place in our first sentence and Kevin is on the receiving end of it. He's the doee, not the doer.

But the second sentence, though structured almost identically, does not make Kevin the object of an action. Someone is watching him, but no one is coying him. Coy is an adjective, not an action. That is, though watch is a transitive verb, coy isn't a verb at all. Therefore the second sentence is not passive. It's active.

All this leads to the question of how, exactly, you form passives.

You just use a form of to be as something called an auxiliary combined with something The Oxford English Grammar calls the passive participle, which is identical to the past participle. As we saw in the last chapter, participles are pieces of conjugated verbs. Past participles are the pieces that usually end in ed or em

In the past you have walked.

On that morning, you had woken.

Irregular verb participles often don't end in ed or en:

woken (past participle of wake) driven (past participle of drive) drunk (past participle of drink) spoken (past participle of speak) risen (past participle of rise) thought (past participle of think) lain (past participle of lie)

But whether your verb is regular or irregular, forming a passive is simple. Just flip-flop the doer and the doee in your sentence and insert an auxiliary to be before a passive participle:

Larry watched Kevin.

Kevin was [auxiliary] watched [passive participle] by Larry.

Even if your active sentence already contains a form of to be as an auxiliary, it's the same idea. Just flip-flop the doer and the doee and insert another auxiliary to be before a passive participle:

Larry was watching Kevin [active sentence with form of to be as auxiliary]

Kevin was being watched by Larry [passive sentence with inserted auxiliary, being, working with original auxiliary, was]

That's more analysis than instruction, by the way. No one ever stops and says, "Now what's that dang formula for making passives again?" Passives come pretty naturally, even to people who have no idea what a participle is. So don't worry about the mechanics. Just start recognizing passive sentences and considering whether they would be better in active form. The answer can be subjective. But the passives that writing pros consider bad are the ones that squelch interesting action.

Tim was shot by Barbara is anemic compared to Barbara shot Tim. The latter has a sense of immediacy and power. Passive forms dilute that power. In our active form, the action is the verb. In passive form, the verb emphasizes being more than doing. That's what people mean

when they say that passives are bad. Yes, their point is overstated, but there's a big lump of truth at its center. Passives often stink:

After he had been flown to Chicago and had been checked into his hotel room, he was called on the phone by his boss.

Sometimes, the best way to fix bad passives is to restructure the passage:

His company flew him to Chicago. After he arrived and checked into his hotel room, his boss called.

Bringing a passive sentence to life is that easy.