Active vs Passive Voice: Conversion Steps, Examples and When to Use Each

In active voice the subject performs the action ("The committee approved the plan"); in passive voice the subject receives it ("The plan was approved by the committee"). Active voice is usually clearer and shorter. Passive is the right choice when the doer is unknown, unimportant or best left unnamed, as in many science methods sections.

The short answer

Active voice puts the doer of the action first: The committee approved the plan. Passive voice puts the receiver of the action first: The plan was approved by the committee. Both are correct English. Active voice is the better default because it is shorter and shows who did what. Passive voice earns its place when the doer is unknown, unimportant or deliberately left out.

Voice is not the same thing as tense. A sentence can be active or passive in the past, present or future. It is also not an error in itself: the grammar is fine, and the question is always whether it serves the reader.

How to recognise each voice

The passive always has two parts: a form of the verb be (is, are, was, were, been, being, will be) and a past participle (measured, written, taken). If you can add "by zombies" after the verb and the sentence still makes grammatical sense, it is passive: "The report was submitted by zombies." That joke test only checks the structure; it does not tell you whether the passive is a good idea.

How to convert active to passive in four steps

Take: The manager reviewed the proposal.

1. Find the object. "The proposal" receives the action.
2. Make it the new subject. "The proposal ..."
3. **Add a form of be in the same tense, plus the past participle.** Past tense: "was reviewed".
4. **Add the doer in a by phrase, or drop it.** "The proposal was reviewed by the manager." or "The proposal was reviewed."

Dropping the by-phrase is what makes the passive useful and, when overused, what makes writing evasive.

Passive forms across tenses

Only verbs that take an object can become passive. Intransitive verbs such as arrive, sleep, happen and die have no passive: "The meeting happened" cannot become "The meeting was happened." Learners often make that error.

Converting passive to active

Reverse the steps. "The grant was awarded by the university" becomes "The university awarded the grant." If there is no by-phrase, you must supply the doer: "The data were collected in March" becomes "We collected the data in March" or "The survey team collected the data in March." If you cannot say who did it, that may be a sign the passive is doing a useful job, or a sign that the writer is hiding something. Decide which.

Before and after: fixing overused passive

Heavy passive writing is the common problem. Look at this paragraph:

The deadline was missed. A decision was made to extend it, and the report was rewritten. Mistakes were found in the figures, and it was agreed that new data would be requested.

Nobody does anything. Rewritten with actors:

We missed the deadline, so the director extended it. I rewrote the report after finding mistakes in the figures, and we agreed to request new data.

The second version is shorter, and the reader knows who is responsible for each step. Here are more pairs.

"Mistakes were made" is a famous example of passive voice used to avoid naming the person responsible. It is grammatical, and it also shows how voice can hide agency.

When passive voice is the right choice

Do not remove every passive. Use it deliberately in these cases.

1. The doer is unknown. "My bicycle was stolen last night." You do not know who took it.
2. The doer is obvious or unimportant. "Parking is prohibited after 6 p.m." Everyone knows who enforces it.
3. The receiver is the topic. In a paragraph about a patient or a sample, keeping that thing as the subject keeps the paragraph focused: "The patient was admitted on Monday and was discharged on Thursday."
4. Tact. "Your invoice has not been received" is less accusatory than "You did not pay."
5. Scientific and technical methods. "The solution was heated to 80°C and stirred for ten minutes." The procedure matters, not who stirred it.
6. Cohesion. Passive can put old information at the start of the sentence and new information at the end: "The report covers three regions. Each region was surveyed in 2025."
7. Formal notices and rules. "Applications must be submitted by 1 March."

What APA and science journals say about voice

Style guidance on voice is more flexible than the common rule "never use passive" suggests. The APA Publication Manual (7th edition) promotes clear, direct scholarly writing and generally favours active voice, while accepting passive where the actor is unimportant or unknown. Many science journals and their author guidelines have moved over the years toward active voice and first person in methods sections ("We measured"), because it is shorter and unambiguous, yet passive remains common and acceptable in the same sections. The practical rule: follow the author guidelines of the journal, the handbook of your department or the style guide your lecturer names. If none is given, choose the version that is clearer for your reader, and be consistent within a section. Guidance changes between editions and journals, so check the current version of the guide you are required to use.

Common mistakes with voice

• Hiding the doer when the reader needs it. "It was decided to cut hours" leaves staff asking who decided. Name the person or body.
• Stacking passives. "The form is required to be completed by applicants who are to be interviewed" is hard to read. Rewrite: "Applicants invited to interview must complete the form."
• Dangling modifiers. "Hoping to finish early, the report was submitted on Friday" suggests the report was hoping. Fix: "Hoping to finish early, the team submitted the report on Friday."
• **Using be + adjective and calling it passive.** "The door is closed" can describe a state rather than an action. Add "by someone" to test: if it only fits when you imagine an action, it is passive.
• Passive for every sentence in academic prose. Mixing active and passive keeps the writing varied and readable.
• Wrong participle. "The letter was wrote" should be "was written." Check irregular forms, as in a list of irregular verbs.
• Inventing a passive for an intransitive verb. "The accident was occurred" is wrong; write "The accident occurred."

A quick editing routine for overuse

1. **Highlight every be + past participle.** Scan for was, were, is, are, been followed by an -ed or irregular form.
2. Ask who did it. If the answer is known and useful, name it.
3. Try the active version aloud. If it is shorter and clearer, keep it.
4. Keep the passive when a reason from the list above applies.
5. Read the paragraph again. Make sure the subject of each sentence connects with the one before.

Using AdeptWrite to check voice

The Grammar Checker can flag grammar and wording problems in a draft and shows each suggestion so you can accept or reject it, which suits this job: it can point to awkward constructions, but only you know whether a passive is intentional. The Sentence Rewriter offers Standard and Formal modes and can restructure a sentence, so you can compare an active rewrite with your original. The Tone Changer helps when a message reads too stiff or too casual. Each runs on up to 6,000 characters at a time. After any automated rewrite, reread the sentence: tools do not know who actually did the thing, and a wrongly named doer is worse than a passive.

Quick reference

• Active: subject does the action. Passive: subject receives it.
• Passive = be + past participle, with an optional by phrase.
• Default to active; keep passive for unknown or unimportant doers, methods, tact and cohesion.
• Only transitive verbs can be passive.
• Check the required style guide before applying a blanket rule.

Related reading: sentence structure shows how voice fits with clause patterns, and subject-verb agreement matters when you rearrange subjects.

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