Download Finding and Fixing Passive Sentences

Writing Workshop (Psy100W)
Finding and Fixing Passive Sentences
Dr. Dillinger, 3/2007
Sentences with verbs in the passive voice (aka “passives” or “passive sentences”) are evil, sinful, they
smell bad, and they make your teeth rot. Whether you need surgery, an exorcist, or a better reviser, you simply
have to get rid of them!
Why passives are bad: In normal sentences with an action verb, the subject of the sentence is the
thing or person doing the action – the “doer”. In passive sentences, the “doer” of the action isn’t the subject
of the sentence any more, so readers have to think three or four times before they can really understand what
you meant. Just remember how hard it is to rewrite your sentences – it’s much, much harder for the poor reader!
How to identify Passives
“Passive voice” is the technical name for a special verb form that lets you shuffle around the other
pieces of the sentence so that they all end up coming out bass-ackwards but (usually) still grammatically correct.
Grammarians call sentences with this verb form “passives” or “passive sentences”.
There are three important clues for identifying passive sentences.
1. There is (usually) some form of the verb “to be”.
The forms of the verb to be are: am, are, is, was, were, being, been, or be
Be careful: There are some particularly nasty cases of passives in which the verb to be does not appear,
so that the only clue you have is the past participle. Here’s an example.
Ex:
The forms completed in the previous step were three pages long.
We know that completed is passive because you can also write it as that were completed – and when you
write it this way, the full passive form is clear.
Be careful: In passives without to be, the –ed word (completed) comes after the noun (forms). If you find
the –ed word before the noun, then it’s not a passive and the sentence is (probably) fine.
(Notice that you can’t write completed as that were completed when it comes before the noun.)
Compare the examples below.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The experimenter discarded the completed
The experimenter discarded the forms
completed in the previous step.
forms.
2. There is also a verb with a past participle form.
A past participle form is one that ends in –ed, or in –en, or has some irregular past participle like shown,
read, etc.
Be careful: “passive” sounds like “past” (as in “past tense”) and the –ed form is also often used for
simple past tense, but they’re NOT the same. A nice, simple past tense is a thing of
beauty. Compare the examples below.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The participants read the forms.
The forms were read by the participants.
The forms were discarded.
The experimenter discarded the forms.
The images were immediately seen for 10 s
The participants saw each image for 10 s.
each.
Prof. Dillinger
Be careful: Sometimes passives are hard to see because there is more than one passive in the same
sentence or because there are other words between the past participle and the verb to be.
Compare the examples below.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The participants read and understood the
The forms were read and understood by the
participants.
forms.
The forms were all collected and quickly
The experimenter quickly collected and
discarded all of the forms.
discarded.
The images were immediately seen or heard
The participants saw or heard each image for 10 s
for 10 s each.
immediately after they heard the instructions.
Be careful: The past participle form of the verb (read/discarded/seen) can also appear with have. That’s
not a passive. Check for yourself: the “doer” of the action is the subject of the sentence.
Compare the examples below.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The forms were read by the participants.
The participants have read the forms.
The forms were discarded.
The experimenter had discarded the forms.
The images were immediately seen for 10 s
The participants have seen each image for 10 s.
each.
Be careful: There are some particularly misleading cases with past participle forms that are actually
adjectives, so technically they’re not passives either. Compare the examples below.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The participants were delighted to finish.
The forms were read by the participants.
The forms were discarded.
The forms were striped.
The images were immediately seen for 10 s
The participants were well-known entertainers.
each.
3. There is (often) the preposition by in the sentence to indicate who or what did the action.
Many of the examples above did not include the by, which is just extra evidence that a passive is lurking
in a sentence. If you can add a by phrase with a “doer” of the action, then it’s a sure sign that you do have a
passive.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The participants read the forms.
The forms were read by the participants.
The forms were discarded by the
The experimenter discarded the forms.
experimenter.
The images were immediately seen by the
The participants saw each image for 10 s.
participants for 10 s each.
How NOT to fix Passives
a) Do not delete the form of the verb to be.
Some writers, overly anxious to cure their writing of passives, seem to think that cutting out the form
of the verb to be will do the trick. That will NOT work. The resulting sentences simply make no sense.
Passive examples (yucky)
Attempted fix (even worse!)
The forms were read by the participants.
The forms read by the participants.
The forms were discarded.
The forms discarded.
The images were immediately seen for 10 s
The images immediately seen for 10 s each.
each.
Prof. Dillinger
b) Do not delete the -ed at the end of the main verb.
Some writers, overly anxious to cure their writing of passives, seem to think that cutting the -ed off
from the verb will do the trick. That will NOT work. The resulting sentences simply make no sense.
Passive examples (yucky)
Attempted fix (even worse!)
The forms were fold by the participants.
The forms were folded by the participants.
The books were returned.
The books were return.
The images were immediately scanned.
The images were immediately scan.
c) Do not rely only on the style checker in your word processing program.
Style checkers are a good start, but they often miss hidden passives and more complex cases. Get
other people to revise your work every time you have to submit something.
How to fix Passives
1. Find the action that the sentence describes.
Ex: The participants were given two texts.
Give is the action.
2. Identify who’s doing the action. Who’s the “doer”?
Ex: The participants were given two texts.
The “doer” is (probably) the experimenter. It’s definitely not the participants.
(Actually, we can’t really tell who the “doer” is from this example sentence, which is one reason why
passives aren’t helpful. If you’re writing the sentence, then at least you should know who the “doer” is.)
3. Fix the sentence so that the “doer” is the subject of the verb.
The best strategy is usually to re-arrange the order of the words so that the “doer” appears as the
subject, at the beginning of the sentence.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The forms were read by the participants.
The participants read the forms.
The forms were discarded.
The experimenter discarded the forms.
The images were immediately seen for 10 s each.
The participants saw each image for 10 s.
In some cases, you can keep the same order by changing to a different verb.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
The participants were given 20 min to fill out The participants had 20 min to fill out the
the questionnaire.
questionnaire.
The children were subjected to two full-length
The children saw two full-length Barney cartoons.
Barney cartoons.
In other cases, major “surgery” is needed. You sometimes need to rewrite the sentence completely to
get the “doer” to become the subject of the sentence.
Passive examples (yucky)
Non-passive examples (fine)
Infants have been classified into three types: Small, medium, and large infants participated in
small, medium, and large.
the study.
The forms completed in the previous step were The experimenter discarded the forms that the
discarded.
participants had completed in a previous step.
Moral of the story: Make sure that the “doer” of the action is the subject of the sentence.
Prof. Dillinger