You’ve heard writers and editors the world over say to always use the active voice. While that is mostly true, there are some times when using the passive voice makes sense. I’ll get to that, but first, a little refresher on what active and passive voice is.
Active voice sentences have a subject (the subject of the sentence) that does some type of action (a verb) and that action has a result (an object). For example:

“I” is the subject of both sentences and “walked” is the verb. What or who got walked? In the first sentence, the dog got walked. In the second sentence, the object answers the question of “Where did I walk?” I walked to the park.
You could combine these sentences and that sentence would have 2 objects. That’s certainly possible, but a bit complex so it deserves its own post.
Writing these sentences as passive voice sentences, they would read “The dog got walked (by me).” The “by me” is in parentheses because it is implied so it may not be written out. The second sentence would read: “The park got walked to by me.” As you can see, passive voice sentences are much more cumbersome and sometimes don’t make sense, which is why the conventional wisdom is to avoid them. However, you can use passive voice and there are times when it is desirable.
I promise, passive voice isn’t just every writer’s favorite flaw. Here are the times when you may want to use passive voice:
When you don’t know, want to de-emphasize, or don’t want to reveal, the subject: Using our examples above, if I realize the dog has been walked, but I didn’t know who did it, then I could acknowledge “the dog got walked” or “the dog was walked.” This can happen in the workplace all the time, especially in large organizations, as reports get written or policies get made and no one can trace their origins.
When a subject is implied or obvious: Maybe you are really good about walking your dog. Or maybe you only live with your dog. So if the dog gets walked, you’re the one to do it. You may not feel the need to say it was you because it is obvious that it is you. If it is someone’s job to do a certain task or it is a task they routinely do, then it may not be necessary to state the subject.
When you’re stating a general truth: Let’s say you and your dog are very close; you’re essentially a dog whisperer. In your wisdom, you reveal general truths about dog walking. You state these in the passive voice. Something like “A walked dog is a happy dog” is written in the passive voice because this applies to anyone with a dog (maybe).
You want to emphasize the object: Because you think so highly of your dog, you put your dog before yourself. What’s important is your dog, not you. So you would say “a walked dog.”
Your audience expects passive voice: If you were conducting a scientific study of dogs, then you may use passive voice. Many workplace reports and scientific articles regularly use passive voice.
Some of these passive voice sentence constructions may sound shady, or suspicious, to you. That’s how passive voice sounds; it sounds like you are trying really hard, tripping over your words, to hide something or at least sound very formal. If you are trying to gain the trust of your audience, you can see how using the passive voice can work against you. Passive voice always puts some distance between the writer and the audience. Sometimes you want that distance, sometimes you don’t.
Go forth and write! And throw a passive voice sentence in there every now and then when it’s appropriate.
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