UniEnglish Grammar: the passive voice 

Using the passive

What is the passive?

We use the passive voice when we want to focus on the object of the verb in an active
sentence rather than the subject. For example, it is possible to say ‘the builder built my
house in 2000’. However, if the builder is not important but the house is the main topic, it
is more appropriate to use the passive and say ‘my house was built in 2000’. In this case
the object ‘house’ becomes the subject and the ‘builder’ is not needed.

Forming the passive voice is not difficult. You use the verb ‘to be’ in the correct tense and
add the past participle of the main verb. An example of a text written in the passive voice
appears below, with the passive forms printed in bold type.

It has been revealed in a new report that if you follow one of the many ‘get thin quickly’
diets which have been invented by ‘experts’ all around the world, you are more likely to
gain weight than lose it in the longer term.

Present It is revealed
Past It was revealed
Present perfect It has been revealed
Past perfect It had been revealed
Future It will be revealed / it is going to
be revealed / it is to be revealed

Activity 1: Find the passive. Have a look at the reading text below again, and make a
note of all the passive forms that you can find, and make a note of the tense.

In the study, the participants were weighed at the beginning of the dieting period. Of the
500 volunteers, 400 were considered to be overweight and the remaining 100 were within
the normal limits for their heights, gender and age. They were then all weighed at periods
throughout the six months, and a journal was kept on their eating habits during this time.
At the end of the research period, it was found that 70% of all participants had actually
increased their weight. Of the 100 people who had not been overweight when they
commenced the study, 50% had experienced a gain in weight. This was not a surprising
finding for Professor Cluse, who has provided an explanation for the phenomenon in an
article published last month in the North American Medical Journal of Nutrition and
Dietetics.

Omitting the verb ‘to be’ in the passive

Did you find all the examples of the passive in the last activity? Maybe you missed the last
one – ‘published’. If you missed it, it is probably because it was written without the verb ‘to
be’. Sometimes it is possible to leave out the verb ‘to be’. One example is when it is used
in some defining relative clauses after the words ‘which’ or ‘that’ (these words can also be
left out!).

“…Professor Cluse, who has provided an explanation for the phenomenon in an article
which was published last month” can be written as:

“…Professor Cluse, who has provided an explanation for the phenomenon in an article
published last month”

If you are not sure if you can omit the verb ‘to be’ or not, it is better to include it.
Activity 2: Omitting the verb ‘to be’ in the passive
Have a look at the sentences below and decide which words, if any, do not need to be
included.

1. I have read several books which were written by Marianne Cluse.

2. Professor Cluse lives in a house that was built in Arizona in 1950.
3. The students enjoyed all the lectures that were presented by Professor Cluse.
4. Her books have been published in many countries.
5. The new theory which has been proposed by Professor Cluse is very interesting.
6. Don’t follow one of those ‘get thin quickly’ diets which have been invented just to
make money.

Activity 3: Writing a paragraph in the passive. Now you will have the chance to
practise writing a text using the passive. We use the passive frequently when we describe
processes, and when we write academic texts which need to appear objective. In addition,
we often use the passive in newspaper reports. Have a look at the paragraph below and
re-write it so that the appropriate verbs are written in the passive. You will not need to do
this for all the verbs in the paragraph.

I was a participant in Professor Cluse’s study. Every week somebody weighed me and
made a note of my weight in a log book. Then somebody asked me about the food I had
eaten that week. They checked my journal every week, too. At the end of the study
somebody calculated the difference between my starting weight and my weight at the
end of the project. They found that I’d gained five kilos. I was very disappointed.

Contributed by Katie Dunworth

© Curtin University of Technology, 2008