The Passive Voice

Signs: A helping verb, such as “was” or “had been,” and often, but not always, a connecting word, such as “by” surrounding the action.

The contract was hit by the vice president.

What is the passive voice?

Perhaps the greatest roadblock to smooth, fast writing lies in sentence structure. Your reader wants to roll from point to point, the message as clear and unobstructed as cornfields in the Midwest.
But, serious accidents can happen along the way when you use the passive voice. One is convoluted or wordy language. Another, unclear sentences. A third, sentences with ambiguous actors — especially damaging in reports, proposals, and sales documents, where your organization most needs to take credit for their results.

Let’s start by talking about the traditional passive voice, which you probably learned about in high school. Here’s how it works. Every sentence must have two components: an actor and an action. Remember the first sentence you learned in grammar school? It probably involved Dick, Jane, and Spot, and they probably were running, talking, or engaging in some other basic activity:
actor action
Jane pats Spot.

Here, “Jane” is the actor and “pats” is the action. Spot, of course, receives the action. Most businesspeople get into trouble when they create the passive voice by separating the actor and action:

The proposal was reviewed by the committee.

“Committee” is the actor and “reviewed” is the action, yet they occupy separate ends of the sentence. This is like saying, “Spot is patted by Jane.” To create a faster voice, simply reunite actor and action and cut a few words:

The committee reviewed the proposal.

Easy, right? But remember, before rewriting, you must distinguish the actor from other nouns. Take this passive sentence:

The information was faxed to Kilroy, Inc., on Friday by Ms. Danforth

Here you have several nouns: “Friday,” “Ms. Danforth,” “information,” and “Kilroy, Inc.” Only one of these nouns, “Ms. Danforth,” is the actor. The action is “faxed.” The solution:

Ms. Danforth faxed the information to Kilroy, Inc., on Friday.
Sometimes you can create passive writing by omitting the actor altogether, as in this example from a training manual:

The seminars will be held in Conference Room B from 8:00 to 3:00, with a lunch break at noon.

The sentence contains an action, “held,” yet no actor. Frequently when I discuss this problem in seminars, someone in the group protests: “The reader already knows who the actor is.” True. But remember, by adding an actor you also create a faster, more direct message, containing those two vital components of any sentence — actor and action. Look at this revision:

We will hold the seminars in Conference Room B from 8:00 to 3:00 with a lunch break at noon.