Is passive voice third person?
No. Passive voice and third person are two separate properties of a sentence. Voice says whether the subject does the action (active) or receives it (passive). Person says whether the subject is the speaker (first: I, we), the listener (second: you) or someone else (third: he, she, it, they, the report). "I was told" is first-person passive; "She told me" is third-person active.
Two independent dials
| Active | Passive | |
|---|---|---|
| First person | I denied the claim. | I was denied coverage. |
| Second person | You denied the claim. | You were denied coverage. |
| Third person | She denied the claim. | She was denied coverage. |
Every cell is grammatical. Voice runs across the columns; person runs down the rows. Choosing one tells you nothing about the other.
Where the confusion comes from
For most of the 20th century, scientific and academic style asked writers to keep themselves out of the text. The quickest way to avoid “I” was the passive: “The solution was heated to 80 °C” instead of “I heated the solution to 80 °C.” Third-person passive became the house style of lab reports, and generations of students absorbed “formal = third person = passive” as one rule.
It was always three separate choices, and the guidance has moved. APA Style permits both voices and recommends the active where the actor matters; many journals now prefer “we measured” to “measurements were taken.” You can be formal, third-person and active all at once: “The authors measured the samples.”
Impersonal constructions
“It is believed that…,” “It was decided that…,” “There is evidence that…” are third person (the subject is it or there) and the first two are passive. These are the sentences that make third person feel passive, because the dummy subject hides whoever believes or decides. If the believer matters, name them: “Investigators believe that…”
Which to use
Person is set by the genre: first person for letters, memos and most modern research; third person for news, reference and anything where the writer should stay out of view. Voice is set sentence by sentence: active when the doer matters, passive when the receiver is the topic or the doer is unknown. The checker marks voice and ignores person, which is the right order of priority — person is a choice you make once per document, voice is a choice you make in every sentence.
Questions people ask
- Can passive voice be in first person?
Yes. “I was promoted in March” and “We were told to wait” are first-person passives. The subject is the speaker, and the subject receives the action.
- Is third person the same as passive voice?
No. “The adjuster denied the claim” is third person and active. “The claim was denied” is third person and passive. Person and voice vary independently.
- Why do people confuse them?
Because both are associated with formal, impersonal writing. Academic style used to demand third person and passive (“It was observed that…”) to avoid “I.” The two habits travelled together, so they got conflated.
- Should academic writing be third person passive?
Not necessarily. APA Style permits first person (“we measured”) and recommends active voice where the actor matters. Check your journal’s or department’s guidance.
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