Writing in Appropriate Voice

There is much debate among members of the academic community regarding the use of active and passive voice. Among students, there is a great deal of confusion about what active and passive voices are in the first place. Understanding the difference between the two and knowing how to write each can have a significant impact on the quality and style of a student’s written assignments.

Defining the Active Voice

Active voice is, in essence, the writing form primary and middle school students learn in early English education. It follows the basic format of subject-action-target in which the subject takes the specified action upon the target.

Defining the Passive Voice

Passive voice effectively reverses the order of the active voice. The object acted upon is listed first, then the action it experiences, and then finally who or what did the action, if it is listed at all. The passive voice expressions can be easily recognized from their verb usage of the various forms of be, such as am, is, was, were, are, or been. It is important to note that not all usage of a be-verb creates a passive voice. Another passive voice indication may be the use of a “by” phrase after the verb. In these, the actor, if named at all, is the object of the prepositional phrase. Use of passive voice prose can create awkward sentences and thus caution should be exercised. Such sentences, when discovered, may benefit from being rewritten into an active voice sentence.

Scientific Use of Passive Voice

Although overuse of passive voice can cause a paper to seem boring, it is commonly accepted in scientific writing since it enables the author to avoid using personal pronouns or proper nouns such as the name of researchers in sentences. The practice creates the appearance of a fact-based, truthful, and objective discourse due to the writer being allowed to present the research and conclusions without attribution to any individuals. The writing instead appears to contain information not limited or biased by personal bias.