The Passive Voice

Many of our readers have questions about the passive voice. Here, we provide an overview of the passive voice.

In a sentence with an action verb (rather than a linking verb) and a direct object, two features tell us who or what is doing the action, and who or what is receiving the action. One feature is word order. The normal word order in English is subject, verb, object:

The courier delivered the package.

The second feature is the form of the verb. The ordinary form of the verb expresses the active voice; this means that the subject is the one doing the action expressed by the verb. If a verb is instead in the passive voice, the subject becomes the person or thing that is acted on or affected by the action.

The package was delivered by the courier.

Here, the original object ("the package") has become the subject, and the original subject ("the courier") is preceded by "by." "By" is necessary here to show that the original subject ("the courier") is still the agent of action. The agent of action does not change between active and passive voice--the person who did the action in the active voice is the same person doing the action in the passive voice.

The passive voice is normally formed by using one or more auxiliary verbs and the past participle of the main verb. Here are some examples of how the active voice and passive voice are constructed in different verb tenses:

VERB TENSE	ACTIVE VOICE	PASSIVE VOICE
present	Carelessness causes many mistakes.	Many mistakes are caused by carelessness.
present progressive	A doctor is treating her.	She is being treated by a doctor.
past	Elvis drove that car.	That car was driven by Elvis.
past perfect	The company had honored the contract.	The contract had been honored by the company.
future (using will)	Jennifer will return the rental car.	The rental car will be returned by Jennifer.
future (using going to)	Our team isn't going to defeat Brazil.	Brazil isn't going to be defeated by our team.

There are several things to keep in mind when you use the passive. The first is that the passive can only be formed with a transitive verb (that is, a verb that takes a direct object). Passive voice only works with verbs that have a subject and an object.

It is also important to know that phrasal verbs in the passive voice are never separated:

CORRECT: The baseball game was held up by rain.
INCORRECT: The baseball game was held by rain up.

You'll notice that some form of be is usually used to form the passive. In informal English, get is often used instead of be to produce the passive:

Her talents often get [=are] overlooked.
The dog got [=was] fed earlier.

In questions and in most negative statements, do must be used as well as get when forming the passive voice:

Did you get [=were you] asked to speak?
The bills didn't get [=weren't] paid.

What can make the passive voice difficult is that, in English, the agent of action does not have to be identified--though, as we mention above, a sentence in the passive voice must have a subject and an object. You may want to use the passive voice because it is not important to identify the one doing the action or you do not wish to identify the one doing the action:

The unsolvable puzzle has been solved. (What is important here is that the puzzle has been solved, not the identity of the person who solved it.)

You can also use the passive voice when you do not know the identity of that person or thing doing the action:

The missing wallet was turned in to the police. (We do not know who turned the wallet in.)

When the one doing the action of the verb is identified, the passive voice simply changes the emphasis of the sentence:

Federer was beaten. (The emphasis here is on the fact that Federer was defeated.)

Federer was beaten by a little-known French player. (The emphasis here is on who beat Federer.)