What is passive voice?
Passive voice is a sentence structure in which the subject receives the action rather than performing it. "The report was written by the manager" is passive: the report is the subject, but the manager did the writing. The passive is built from a form of *be* (or *get*) plus a past participle, and the doer either follows "by" or is left out.
The definition, unpacked
English sentences have two voices. In the active voice the subject does the action: The adjuster denied the claim. In the passive voice the subject has the action done to it: The claim was denied by the adjuster. The two sentences describe the same event. What changes is which noun gets the subject’s seat, and therefore what the sentence is “about.”
The Purdue OWL puts it as: in the passive voice the subject is acted upon. That is the whole idea. Everything else about the passive follows from the mechanics of moving the receiver to the front.
The formula
A passive verb phrase always has two parts, and sometimes a third:
| Part | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A form of be (or get) | am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being; get, got, gotten | was |
| A past participle | the -ed or irregular form: written, taken, denied, built | denied |
| Optionally, by + the doer | the agent, who could be left out | by the adjuster |
Modal and infinitive forms follow the same pattern with extra helpers: must be signed, needs to be reviewed, will have been completed. The one thing every passive shares is be + past participle.
Passive voice in every tense
| Tense | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| Simple present | The clerk files the report. | The report is filed. |
| Present progressive | The clerk is filing the report. | The report is being filed. |
| Present perfect | The clerk has filed the report. | The report has been filed. |
| Simple past | The clerk filed the report. | The report was filed. |
| Past progressive | The clerk was filing the report. | The report was being filed. |
| Past perfect | The clerk had filed the report. | The report had been filed. |
| Simple future | The clerk will file the report. | The report will be filed. |
| Future perfect | The clerk will have filed the report. | The report will have been filed. |
| Modal | The clerk must file the report. | The report must be filed. |
The full set, with notes on which tenses are rare in the passive, is on the passive voice tenses page.
Three things that look passive and are not
Progressive tenses. “She was running” is be + an -ing verb, not a past participle. Active.
Linking verbs with adjectives. “The road was long,” “I am interested,” “They were tired.” The word after be describes a state. “Interested” and “tired” are past participles by origin, but here they work as adjectives: you can say “very interested,” and no one did any interesting. Our checker shows these with a dotted underline and leaves them out of the score; most other checkers flag them.
Perfect tenses without be. “He has written three books” uses have + participle. That is the present perfect, and it is active. The passive version would be “Three books have been written by him.”
Why writers are told to avoid it
Three reasons, all practical. Passive sentences are longer: “The claim was denied by the adjuster” is seven words to the active version’s five. They can hide responsibility: “Mistakes were made” says nothing about who made them, which is precisely why politicians like it. And they put the reader through a small reordering job, receiver first and doer last, that active sentences do not. The federal plain-language guidelines call passive voice one of the biggest problems in government writing for the second reason: it leaves the reader unsure who should do what.
When passive voice is the right choice
Every major style guide allows the passive, and APA Style says plainly that both voices are permitted. Use the passive when:
- The doer is unknown. “My bike was stolen last night.”
- The doer is obvious or irrelevant. “The suspect was arrested.” “Penicillin was discovered in 1928.”
- The receiver is the topic. “The bridge was built in 1932 and was widened in 1978” keeps the bridge in focus across both clauses.
- You are being deliberately tactful or impersonal. “Your application was not successful.”
- The procedure matters more than the person. “Samples were stored at −80 °C.” Methods sections run on this.
The when to use passive voice guide covers each case with examples.
How to spot it quickly
Add “by zombies” after the verb. “The report was written by zombies” makes sense, so it is passive. “She was running by zombies” does not, so it is active. The test is not perfect — it flags adjectival sentences like “I was tired by zombies” — but it is the fastest first pass. Or paste your text into the checker and let it find them for you.
Questions people ask
- What is passive voice in simple terms?
A sentence where the thing being acted on comes first and the doer comes last or is missing. “The cake was eaten” is passive. “We ate the cake” is active.
- What is the formula for passive voice?
Subject (the receiver) + a form of be (am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being) + past participle + optionally “by” + the doer. Example: The claim + was + denied + by the adjuster.
- Is passive voice grammatically wrong?
No. It is a correct and sometimes necessary construction. Style guides discourage overusing it because it is wordier and can hide who is responsible.
- How do I know if a sentence is passive?
Look for a form of be followed by a past participle, then ask whether the subject is receiving the action. The zombie test is the shortcut: add “by zombies” after the verb; if the sentence still makes sense, it is passive.
- What is the difference between passive voice and past tense?
Tense is about time; voice is about who does the action. “The letter was sent” is past tense and passive. “She sent the letter” is past tense and active. “The letter is sent every Monday” is present tense and passive.
Get the one-page passive voice cheat sheet
The be-verb list, the zombie test, the twelve tenses in passive form and the five cases where passive is the right call, on a printable page. Free, by email.
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