Just How Bad is the Passive Voice?

It is often said that the passive voice weakens an argument.  It often uses extra words, reduces readability, and can even remove the reader from the text.  The passive voice creates a sentence that is cold and often lacking a clear, specific subject.  It is for these reasons that many influential voices have called for the extermination of the passive voice.  Should the passive voice even exist in modern English?  Does it have a clear use?

To start off, the passive voice is an English grammatical device which either places the actor near the end of a sentence or removes it entirely.  An example of the passive voice is "the car was parked by Alice."  This is in contrast to the active voice version: "Alice parked the car."  The subject of both sentences, Alice, parks the car.  The active voice, however, is more assertive of the facts of the sentence.

In passive voice, the verb is always followed by the subject.  This, as you saw in the first example, leads to excess wordiness and obscures the meat of the sentence.  In this case, the first example also creates two meanings: (1) someone parked the car near Alice or (2) Alice parked the car.  Ambiguity is always something a writer should avoid.

That is why, in general, it is advised to avoid use of the passive voice at all costs.  It creates excess wordiness and, when used without good purpose, obscures the core subject of a sentence.

The passive voice is especially bad in works of fiction since it could obscure the facts and emotion of the moment.  Worst of all, when overused, the passive voice can completely exclude the reader from the text -- something to be avoided in creative writing.  Stephen King makes a compelling argument in his memoir, On Writing, that the passive voice should be avoided entirely.

However, the passive voice does have its advantages.  Use of the passive voice can make it easier to express or emphasize neutrality.  This is why some scientific journals have, in the past, encouraged use of the passive voice: it emphasizes the results of an action.  But where the passive voice is most useful is when you need to introduce new information into a thought.  Consider the following:

A Tale of Two Cities is a novel set in London and Paris during the French Revolution.  It was written in 1859 by Charles Dickens. The book focuses on the plight of the peasantry in Paris leading up to the revolution.  It also draws parallels to London around the same time.

In this example, the passive voice is used in the second sentence where the subject is the author, Charles Dickens.  The active version is as follows:

A Tale of Two Cities is a novel set in London and Paris during the French Revolution.  Charles Dickens wrote it in 1859. The book focuses on the plight of the peasantry in Paris leading up to the revolution.  It also draws parallels to London around the same time.

Both versions of this paragraph convey the same information. However, the first example emphasizes the subject of the paragraph, the novel, whereas the second emphasizes the subject of the sentence, the author.  This is one of the cases where the passive voice is easier to understand than its active counterpart.  The fact that the novel was written in 1859 is the result of Charles Dickens writing it.

In conclusion, the passive voice still does have a real use in the English language, but should be used only where it fits.  The active voice is more emotional and assertive, while the passive is cold and result driven.  It is for these reasons why some people argue that it should be avoided.

There is, however, use for the passive voice especially when focusing the facts of a paragraph or when the reader should be divorced from the text.  It is for these reasons that the passive voice is a useful tool when writing and should be used where appropriate.