Passive Writing
Some English teachers actively encourage their students to depend on active voice, while others allow their students to depend on passive voice. What’s the difference, and why is the difference important?
Active voice appears in sentences such as, “The detective discovered that the manager was a thief.” Passive voice appears in sentences such as, “It was discovered that the manager was a thief.”
Why would someone use passive voice in a sentence like that? Because they want to call the manager a thief, but are afraid to say why!
Passive voice is common in scientific papers, because it lets the writers avoid using the words I or we, to avoid saying where their ideas came from. That’s why some teachers think that passive voice sounds more educated. Usually, though, it’s simply less definite. It might (or might not) fool your teacher, but in the real world, when they have something to say, even scientists don’t have the luxury of not being definite.
In business writing, sentences make the most sense when the subject comes first, followed by what the subject is doing. So make sure passive writing is not reducing the efficiency of your words.
Michael on June 5, 2007 
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Interesting. I was always taught that using the passive voice is practically sinful, and I’ve managed to avoid using it for a long time now.
You make it sound as if it’s acceptable to use it sometimes, though. If anyone reads this, could they give an example of passive voice used correctly? (i.e., without reducing the efficiency of words.)
Passive voice does seem to reduce the efficiency of words. But if you don’t know who is doing the action, sometimes you can’t get around it. Also, scientists use passive voice when they want to de-emphasize the actor.
Examples:
“Rules are made to be broken.”
“The door had been forced open, and the jewels had been stolen.”
“Further research needs to be done to prove this hypothesis.”
Yes, you could rewrite these sentences in active voice, but the subject would be a vague noun such as “somebody.”
Re: Active versus Passive
Choose the desired sentence context: Doer versus Receiver, such as “John hit the ball” versus “John was hit by the ball”.
It’s awonderful experience to learn the difference between active and passive writing,active is more forceful well explainatory…please corrections welcom as I am beginner
Ron: The passive of the sentence should be “The ball was hit by John.” Your example is the passive form of “The ball hit John.”
Usually, with a little thinking, most sentences can be converted from passive to active. In the above example, “Further research needs to be done to prove this hypothesis,” could be worded as “Future research will confirm or reject this hypothesis,” or “This hypothesis needs further examination.” “This hypothesis will be proved through future research.” (Note: no self-respecting scientist would write the original sentence since hypothesis are not “proved” nor can a person claim that a hypothesis will be proved.)