Passive vs Active Voice: When Each One Actually Makes Sense

Your grammar checker just flagged a sentence as passive voice. Should you change it? Maybe. Here's how to actually decide.

The Real Difference

Active voice: the subject does the action. 'The team completed the project.' Passive voice: the subject receives the action. 'The project was completed by the team.' Both sentences convey the same information. The question is emphasis: do you want to foreground the team or the project?

When Passive Voice Is Wrong

Most of the time. Especially in business writing, blogs, journalism, and anything aimed at a general audience. Active voice is almost always clearer, more direct, and more engaging. Compare:

• Passive: 'It has been decided that the launch will be delayed.' Active: 'We're delaying the launch.'
• Passive: 'Errors were found in the report.' Active: 'We found three errors in the report.'
• Passive: 'The issue will be investigated.' Active: 'We'll investigate the issue by Friday.'

Notice the pattern: passive voice often removes the responsible party. That's sometimes intentional (see below) but usually it's just vague.

When Passive Voice Is Right

• Scientific writing: 'Samples were heated to 80°C' is correct — the actor (the researcher) is irrelevant to the scientific fact.
• When the actor is unknown or unimportant: 'The building was constructed in 1923' — who built it doesn't matter.
• When you want to emphasize the object: 'Shakespeare was born in 1564' foregrounds Shakespeare, not his parents.
• Legal and policy language: 'Applications must be submitted by March 31' — who submits is variable; the deadline is the point.
• Deliberate de-emphasis: 'Mistakes were made' is a classic political construction, intentionally avoiding blame.

The Actual Rule

Use active voice as your default. Switch to passive when you have a specific reason: the actor is unknown, the actor is irrelevant, or you deliberately want to de-emphasize who did something.

When you hit a passive construction, ask one question: 'Does it matter who or what did this?' If yes, make it active. If no, passive might be fine.

The Bigger Problem: Weak Verbs

Passive voice gets blamed for writing problems that are often caused by something else: weak, vague verbs. 'There is a need for...' isn't technically passive, but it's just as indirect. Replace 'is/are/was/were + noun' with a specific verb wherever possible. 'There is a need for more data' → 'We need more data.' Active voice + strong verbs is the actual goal.