The Passive Voice: When and Why to Use It

The passive has a bad reputation, mostly from writing advice aimed at native speakers. In fact it's essential in professional, technical, and academic English — when used deliberately.

How it's formed

be (in the right tense) + past participle.

Active	Passive
The team wrote the report.	The report was written by the team.
They are testing the system.	The system is being tested.
Someone has stolen my bag.	My bag has been stolen.
They will announce it.	It will be announced.
We must check it.	It must be checked.

Only the tense of be changes; the participle stays fixed.

Non-finite forms

The passive also appears after to and after prepositions, which is where it starts showing up in ordinary sentences:

• This needs to be done today.
• She hates being interrupted.
• The report should have been sent on Friday.

When the passive is the right choice

1. The doer is unknown or irrelevant

• My bag was stolen. (we don't know who)
• The road was resurfaced last week. (who did it doesn't matter)

2. The result matters more than the actor

• The vaccine was developed in under a year.

3. Describing processes and procedures

• The samples are heated to 90°C, then left to cool.

4. Being tactful — avoiding blame

• Mistakes were made. (rather than "you made mistakes")
• The deadline was missed.

This last use is genuinely valuable in workplace communication, where naming the person can be counterproductive.

5. Keeping the topic at the front of the sentence

English prefers known information first. If the paragraph is about the proposal, keep the proposal as the subject:

We spent three weeks on the proposal. It was rejected the following Monday.

Switching to The board rejected it would drag a new actor into the subject slot and break the thread.

Verbs with two objects

Verbs like give, send, offer, tell, pay have two possible passives, and English strongly prefers the one starting with the person:

• They gave me a refund. → ✅ I was given a refund. (natural)
• → 🚫 A refund was given to me. (correct but stilted)

The "get" passive

In speech, get often replaces be — usually for something sudden, unwanted or accidental.

• He got fired. · My phone got broken. · We got stopped at the border.

It is informal: keep be in written work.

The impersonal passive

Academic and news English uses this to report a claim without owning it:

• It is said that the company is in trouble.
• The company is said to be in trouble.
• He is thought to have left the country.

Both shapes work with say, think, believe, report, know, expect.

When to avoid it

If the doer matters, the active is clearer and shorter:

• ❌ A decision was reached by the committee.
• ✅ The committee reached a decision.

The real test isn't "passive or active" — it is who or what should this sentence be about? Put that in the subject slot, and the voice follows automatically.

Mentioning the doer: by

Add by only when the actor is worth stating.

• The proposal was rejected by the board. (relevant)
• The window was broken by someone. (pointless — just say "The window was broken")

Common error: forgetting "be"

• ❌ The report written last week.
• ✅ The report was written last week.

Try it yourself

The quiz below tests both the form and — harder — the judgement of when the passive is appropriate.