Is it wrong to write in passive voice?

Question

Is it wrong to write in passive voice?

Answer 1

The passive voice of a verb is acceptable in some instances: 

1) If the doer of the action is unknown. Example: The United States is regarded as the most democratic nation in the world. 

2) If the receiver is more important than the doer.  Example: Clamshells were used by some Native Americans as money. If the writer's topic is clamshells, then the passive voice is correct.

3) If the writer decides that it is best to not identify the doer. 

Answer 2

I would not say that passive voice is "wrong," but active voice is usually stronger, especially for an English paper. When I worked with students at my university's writing center, I usually advised them to use active voice because it emphasizes the subject rather than the object. That being said, lab reports in psychology or hard sciences usually require passive voice. Agreeing with the previous posters, your best bet would be to stick to active voice whenever possible.

Answer 3

It may be considered "weak" but never wrong as long as it's constructed correctly. However, as many of these answers imply, there are "good/better/best" contexts for the use of passive voice. Here are two specific contexts that will be helpful to many students: SAT questions & news writing.

The official SAT practice book refers to the "weak passive verbs." These are found in Sentence Improvement questions. Most of the time, a straight forward active voice answer choice is a better answer than a weak passive voice answer choice. (However, in the last decade, I have seen some real tests questions with a passive voice answer as the best answer, so don't automatically assume it's wrong.) Generally, it's also best to use active voice within SAT essays.

Traditionally, news writing requires the use of Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure. This is inherently active voice. Passive voice in news writing is usually either found in a direct quotation or in reporting information that is not complete.

Lastly, be sure that you fully understand the construction of passive voice construction. (It's not just the feel of the sentence.) The object is moved to the subject position and the verb becomes a participle with a to be helping verb. Here are two examples of passive voice based on rearranging this active voice sentence: Bob ate all the cookies. (S-V-O)

(1) All the cookies were eaten.   (O-V  The object is now the subject, and we don't know who did it.)
(2) All the cookies were eaten by Bob.   (O-V-S  The actor is now an object and less central.)

Answer 4

I agree with the statement below regarding passive voice.  Passive is often used in official writing, like that of the government or business.  It is primarily used when the speaker/writer wants to empasize the result of an action, rather than who or what is doing it.  For example, in old adage, "Children should be seen and not heard," it is the result of the action that is important, not who will or will not see or hear the children.  It is important, though to know how to effectively use the passive voice in more advanced writing, like essays or research papers.

Answer 5

Writing in passive voice is not wrong, it is simply not usually the prefered form of writing. Reasons are:

(a) it is not direct,

(b) it is usually wordy and redundant,

(c) it is not as clear nor as positive as active voice.

Follow your teacher's instructions on this. Usually s/he will accept a combination of passive and active.

Answer 6

It is not "wrong" to write in passive voice (a construction with some version of "to be" followed by a past participle, often with an implied or actual "by"); a teacher might have a preference for active voice (especially if they were trained in English, as opposed to Writing Studies or Linguistics), but that preference is one that you could effectively negotiate and challenge if you felt that using the passive voice could be useful for achieving some effect. Some academic disciplines and professions actually prefer the passive voice; even in academic disciplines that usually prefer active constructions, there may be good reasons for using the passive voice.

Passive and active voice describe the arrangement of words; these arrangements may be more "conventional" in a given setting at a given time, but these conventions also change over time as the language values of the people in that setting change. If, for example, you were a biologist who felt that the use of passive voice in scholarly papers obscures the presence of an observer (whose observations are inflected by their beliefs, values, history, culture, etc., AND/OR who might have affected the behavior of the species being observed just by being present), then you might choose to strategically resist the convention, and could begin to shift how others within that field use language.

Answer 7

Passive voice is more subdued that active voice. In order to write effectively, the writer should use active voice most of the time in order to add emphasis and energy to the writing. Passive voice should be used for scientific and legal reports as the subject is not emphasized for purposes of objectivity.

e.g. "The suspect was arrested while he was attempting to break into a car in a parking lot."

RATHER THAN: " I arrested John Doe because he was attempting to break into a car in a parking lot."

Passive voice is also effective when writing a command or correction, and the reader is highly respected by the writer, so that the reader is not offended .

e.g. "Professor Brown, one word was misspelled in the quote you wrote in an email on Tuesday. I corrected the spelling before copying the quote."

RATHER THAN: "Professor Brown, you misspelled a word in the quote.............."

Answer 8

It is also a matter of tone.  Passive is usually good when you don't want to seem confrontational or too aggressive especially in an interpersonal or relational context during conflict or problem solving.  The active voice reflects or suggests more assertiveness or can be too accusatory. 

"I" statements in the active voice can be used to acknowledge more personal responsibility for actions in a relational context.  Just as "You" statements may be used to assign blame or responsibility besides self.

Example: "I crashed into a car at the stop light." (Active)

vs.

"The car was hit by a driver in front of me who wasn't paying attention at the stop light." (Passive)

 

Answer 9

An arena of writing in which it is often improper (though not necessarily wrong) to use the passive voice is in screenwriting.  That may not be all that pertinent to the topic at hand, but I figure it was worth mentioning.

I'm one who tends to prefer the active voice.  Of course, I'm also one who typically writes argumentative position papers, and there the active voice is hugely important in one's presentation/critique of an argument.

Answer 10

No. That's a lie taught in school. Passive voice is an important tool for writers when they don't want to make the agent the star of the sentence, don't know who did the action, and so on. Consider two newspaper headlines about the same event. 1. MARS DESTROYED 2. AN UNKNOWN PERSON SHOT A MISSILE AND DESTROYED MARS. However, there is a best practice with it. For example, we just don't say something like "Coffee is liked by me." That's unconventional--a usage issue.

Answer 11

Hey there, I get where you're coming from! Let’s chat about the passive voice like we're talking face-to-face.

So, is using the passive voice wrong? Not at all! It's really about your message and what you want to emphasize. Imagine you're telling a story—sometimes you want to shine the spotlight on the actor by saying, "Jenny kicked the ball." Other times, you might want to focus on the ball getting kicked, so you'd say, "The ball was kicked." Both work perfectly fine; it just depends on what you're trying to get across.

Here’s what to keep in mind:

1. If you want to highlight who did something, go with the active voice. It’s clear and direct.
2. But if your goal is to emphasize the action or the outcome, the passive voice can actually work really well.
3. Plus, in more formal or technical conversations, the passive voice often sounds more neutral and can keep the focus on the event rather than the actor.

At the end of the day, it’s all about balance. Use the style that best fits your tone and message. There’s no strict rule against passive voice—it just has its own flavor, and sometimes that flavor perfectly suits what you’re trying to say.

Hope that helps clear things up! If you have more questions or want to chat more about it, just let me know.

Answer 12

Passive Voice, to put it simply, makes the subject into the receiver of the action. For example, 'He gave an excellent speech." (ACTIVE VOICE)

Now, look at the same sentence in Passive Voice: ' An excellent speech was given by him."

In the second sentence, he, the subject, became him, the object.

This kind of sentence sounds weaker as compared to one in which the doer of the action is the subject.

But in academic writing, formal agreements and papers, etc., Passive Voice is deliberately used.

Take this example: "An agreement must be reached by all parties." (passive voice)

"All parties must reach an agreement." (Active Voice)

Both these versions are correct, but in an official document, the passive voice version might be preferred. That is because an individual person is not usually the author of official documents. Official documents are issued by organizations. Here, generally applicable instructions or policies are expressed in passive voice in order to set a more formal and general tone.

Know more about setting the right 'tone' in writing!

Answer 13

When an act of nature occurs, an unexplained freak of nature, a mysterious, uncanny, or " das Unheimliche" event that has no source, no actor, nothing and no one to blame, the writer can use the passive voice. I remember reading the novel, "The Bridge of St. Luis' Way" and the tragic deaths of the pilgrims.

Answer 14

Some teachers may not like passive voice because it obfuscates meaning and sometimes makes the object and subject of a sentence a little unclear. Passive voice creates a lack of clarity both in our writing and in our speech, but without passive voice, creating flow in writing would be impossible.

Many teachers in college say to write 80% active and 20% passive. Passive isn't wrong. It's just not clear. Active voice creates clarity and brevity because it places the subject and verb at the beginning of the sentence with the object usually coming toward the end. Using too much active voice can create choppy writing, though, so mixing it up is important.

Answer 15

This is not the kind of tactic that I would consider "right" or "wrong" on its face. Instead think about the purpose of what you are writing, and the style with which you want to write it.

If you are writing an argumentative essay/article, then a passive voice tends to indicate a weakness in conviction with regards to your points. The same could be said of a statement of fault. It can come across as insincere to have a PR statement read like a series of events that merely happened to a person or company rather than the result of a company's own actions. For the purpose of a PR statement, "We are sorry that you were harmed by the mistake in production" is less effective than "We are sorry that we harmed you due to our mistake in production." To my ear, the latter sounds more sincere than the former which almost implies that it is the fault of the people being apologized to.

In narrative writing, the passive voice CAN be used as a more subtle way of portraying a character's lack of initiative or agency. "Milton felt the pain of the court's decision" vs "The pain delivered by the court's decision was felt by Milton." In my opinion, the latter example better displays how worthless that Milton is, since it comes across as though he has no control over incidents that merely happen to him.

Answer 16

In some instances, passive voice can be a determining factor for a certain writing. Writing in passive voice can sometimes come off as "boring" to certain readers and can make them lose concentration or interest. Always remember to watch the point in which you 1. you usse passive voice 2. How much you use it 3. how it effects the topic of your writing.

Answer 17

Hi, Lucy,

You ask an important question about which English experts tend to agree, as the many answers here suggest! No, it is definitely not wrong to write in passive voice, and it exists for a few reasons (Renee captures them well above). But strong writing and English grammar tend to favor active voice. When to use each I will try to explain.

English grammar, and the organization of the English sentence, is actually based around the action of the sentence. Therefore, the best writing (and therefore the best reading) tends to follow the Subject (thing doing the action) -verb (the action itself) -object (the thing receiving or the thing acted upon by the action) format. (Michael above explains the SVO topic in great detail.)

This SVO format is active voice and generally improves and shortens writing:

Mom (S-actor) booked (V-action) the airline tickets (O--object/thing acted upon).

Multiple Founding Fathers (S) signed (V) the Declaration of Independence (O).

I (S) crashed (V) the car (O).

The presidents (S) reached (V) an agreement (O).

Active voice creates space for really interesting verbs, which in turn tends to make writing more concise and forwards the plot or action of the writing (whether an essay, a story, a poem, or a research proposal), if that makes sense. For these reasons, I believe, active voice is generally rewarded in standardized tests and features in great writing.

However, passive voice is important at times. It allows emphasis to be placed on a thing that actually receives the action (which is typically the direct or an indirect object of a sentence). It is placed in the subject seat of a sentence for that emphasis or focus to occur.

Example: The airplane tickets were booked.

In this case, the tickets did not book themselves, and the sentence is also grammatically correct. However, the focus is on the tickets, not on the person doing the booking.

Another example: The Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776.

Clearly, the focus of this sentence is on the subject of the sentence in this example (not the action, as is typical in active voice), even though the Declaration of Independence is not doing an action itself, as such. It was done, written, and adopted by others, not by itself. But we are describing it and interested in knowing about it; by placing it in the subject seat of the sentence we are best able to highlight it. Put another way, even though the Declaration of Independence was made/written and therefore a product of other people's actions, and is basically a direct object, by placing the sentence in passive voice, we allow the object to become the star of the sentence, in the subject role. Passive voice allows us to switch things up a little, so we can shift focus here and there.

As I said in my comment to Renee's answer, passive voice is ideal in acts of diplomacy, when we wish to avoid placing too much blame or credit on one party over another.

Example: An agreement was reached by the two presidents.

Placing the focus on the agreement allows it to be the focus, not the presidents making the accord.

To help underscore this point of strategic diplomacy/politeness, I like to joke with my students about when we tend to use passive voice in everyday life: it it is often to intentionally take attention off of the doer.

Example: The car was crashed.

Under most circumstances, cars do not get into accidents independent of their drivers. The speaker of such a sentence may be trying to explain to his or her parents what happened to the car, to draw attention away from the driver who did the damage.

In sum, the idea is to favor active voice so that the plot or action of our writing is clear. But at times we need passive voice to allow ourselves as writers an opportunity to discuss or describe an object or move gently through politicized ideas that could otherwise alienate readers from appreciating all we have to say. Hopefully this helps put both passive and active voice in perspective for you!

Answer 18

That depends. If you're trying to establish character -- say, for example, you've written a short story in which a morally frail protagonist refuses to accept responsibility for his behavior -- you might have him use passive voice. Think of the now-famous line uttered by disgraced President Richard Nixon: "Mistakes were made." Passive voice is often used in situations where a speaker wants to avoid laying -- or accepting -- blame.

Answer 19

Using the passive voice is not necessarily wrong, but it can deaden your writing if you don't handle it judiciously

A. The dog was last seen on the highway.

B. He last saw the dog on the highway.

In the above examples, passive-voice A and active-voice B are both unobjectable sentences.

But...

C. He turned off the light before leaving the room.

D. Before he left the room, the light was turned off.

E. Before leaving the room, the light was turned off.

In these examples, active-voice C is good plain English; passive-voice D is grammatically correct, but weak and confusing; and passive-voice E is not only weak and confusing but grammatically incorrect as well because it contains a dangler--the light can't leave the room.

Answer 20

It is not wrong to write in the passive voice when appropriate. There are 5 specific cases in which passive voice is perfectly acceptable. However, let's first clarify the difference between active voice and passive voice.

For active voice, the subject goes first, followed by the verb, then the object: S-V-O.

For passive voice, the object is first, followed by the verb, then the subject: O-V-S

Active: Bryan threw the football.

Passive: The football was thrown by Bryan.

These sentences are saying the same thing, but in the active voice, the focus is more on Bryan and in the passive voice, the focus is on the football. Additionally, when we use the passive voice, the sentence is typically formed of the verb be--is, was, or has been--and the past participle form of the verb (i.e., threw versus thrown).

In some instances, the subject can even be dropped in the passive voice.

Passive: The football was thrown. O-V

We do tend to avoid the passive voice for different reasons. It is criticized as tending to be more evasive, vague, indirect, and it can make the sentence "wordy." Remember, the goal is to be as concise and clear as possible when writing academic papers for humanities and social sciences. This is when active voice is highly encouraged in order to focus on the different ideas of the researchers or the relationships between concepts and ideas of the writer and those of the ideas of the researchers being discussed. When too many passive sentences are present, there can be confusion as to who did, said, or thought what.

The 5 cases when passive voice is appropriate and even sometimes ideal:

1. The actor is unknown:
2. "A 120-foot feline figure dating back to 200 B.C. was carved into a hill in Peru."
3. Here, we do not know who carved it.
4. The actor is irrelevant:
5. "The World War II Museum was built in New Orleans."
6. Here, we are not interested in who built it.
7. It is a general truth:
8. "Rules are made to be broken."
9. Here, the action can be performed by whomever, wherever.
10. To emphasize the person or thing being acted on:
11. "Polio has been eradicated in the United States due to the groundbreaking development of the polio vaccine. There has not been a single case recorded by the CDC since 1979."
12. These are often great topic sentences.
13. You are writing in a scientific genre that relies on the passive voice, most notably in the Materials and Methods of lab reports:
14. "A solution of sodium hydroxide was tittered until neutralized into a sample of hydrogen chloride."
15. This emphasizes the experimental process.
16. We assume our audience knows it is you performing the action.

Note: Scientific disciplines have started to move towards the active voice but in academic writing, you will find that the passive voice is most often found in published reports such as these.

SAT Tip: Strong active voice sentences are more often the correct response. I have recently seen the passive voice pop up more, and in complex ways, on the exam but when in doubt, chose the active voice:

Passive choice: Eye contact with the raging bull was

avoided by me.

Active choice: I avoided eye contact with the raging bull.

I hope that helps!

Answer 21

Is writing in passive voice ok

Answer 22

The passive voice should be avoided at all costs - especially when writing fiction. It's wordy, clunky, and doesn't create as clear an image in the mind of the reader as the active voice.

There are some exceptions, such as when you don't want to label the "doer" of an action to generate mystery or suspense.

Everyone from Chuck Palahniuk to Stephen King are in agreement on this matter. Go to a bookstore, pick up any random book, and you'll find that the passive voice is hardly ever used.

Answer 23

I personally love to use passive voice.

Here's an example:

I've always been asked that question. ✅

Answer 24

Writing in passive voice is not "wrong", but is often not preferred. Passive voice sentences can make writing wordy and unnecessarily complicated.

Consider: Alex hit the ball high into the stands! vs. The ball was hit high into the stands by Alex.

The first example is the active voice sentence and sounds clearer and more to the point. The second sentence is okay, but seems awkward. On occasion, a concise passive voice sentence can break up the monotony of your writing and help vary the sentence structure.

Consider: The ball was hit high into the stands.

Leaving off "by Alex" takes away the awkward wordiness for me.

Answer 25

Brevity and Clarity are major reasons for using active over passive

The point of language is to communicate. The longer you ramble on, the more confusing and less clear what you're saying. Attention deficit disorder kicks in. It takes more words to write in the passive. You want to pack as much information into as few words as possible.

Plus action wakes people up. You want an active verb. Passive puts you to sleep. You lose your audience. You communicated nothing when they're asleep or getting distracted and bored.

Answer 26

If you're working with the U.S. Government (proposal and grant writing, for example), the active voice is absolutely preferred over the passive voice. Try your hardest to make your writing clear and persuasive, and avoid the passive voice if at all possible!

Answer 27

My opinion is that the main purpose of writing is to communicate to your audience. If using the passive voice gets your point across more creatively to your intended reader, then, by all means, go ahead and use it.

Answer 28

Generally, active voice is better. It is more clear and concise than passive voice. From many years of writing and editing, I believe it's easier for the reader's brain to process active voice.

"In a few instances, passive voice may be appropriate. For example, when one action follows another as a matter of law, and there is no actor (besides the law itself) for the second action, a passive sentence may be the best method of expression." Source: https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/use-active-voice/

Answer 29

Active Voice is stronger and the ACT will test you on it. The ACT hates passive voice and with passive voice, it's not always clear who is doing the action in a sentence.

Passive voice is weaker, uses more words, and is often used by politicians deflecting responsibility i.e. "Mistakes were made", is passive. "I made mistakes," is active voice.

Another example: sometimes with passive voice, we ARE aware of the subject (who is doing the action in the sentence).

For example: The piano was played by Jane, is passive, whereas, Jane played the piano is active--is shorter and stronger.

Answer 30

Generally not. However, passive voice has the potential to create wordiness and sometimes to conceal the main aspect of the sentence.

Answer 31

All answers are good, but academia usually sees the passive voice as more educated and intellectual than the active, for instance a friend of mine took some friend's passive voice, 'A' paper, put it in the active voice with much more content, and received a 'C'! Academic bias against the simpler, less sophisticated active voice is still way too strong, when actually the passive voice is less illuminating, imho.

Answer 32

I don't think it's wrong to use passive voice in writing. I also think the type of writing often determines the best point of view for the author to write in. Informative and persuasive essays, for example, can be developed quite adequately with the use of passive voice. However, a narrative or autobiography may best be written in the first or third person.

Best of luck!

Answer 33

It is not "wrong" to use the passive voice. In fact, there are times when it would be entirely too awkward to use anything else. However, it is almost always best to use the active voice in your writing. It has the effect of 1) making your writing more engaging for the reader and 2) forcing you to use a wider range of vocabulary in your writing, which is always a plus.

Answer 34

It is not wrong to use passive voice in an essay.  The reason teachers say that it is wrong is because your teachers want you to learn how to communicate in a more effective manner. Let's face it passive voice can get boring after a while because it doesn't add any creativity or excitement to  the essay. 

Nancy N.

Answer 35

In addition, one useful thing to know is that this is cultural.  Specifically American formal English avoids the passive voice in most circumstances.  British formal English still uses it frequently, and Canadian usage can be in the middle.  I saw an excellent blog article on this earlier at theprofessorisin.com (don't have text on this computer handy to quote).  This is not surprising given American cultural norms of directness and simplicity.  So the answer is: write for your audience, and given that your audience is probably made up of Americans since this is an American site, be cautious about passive voice, even in formal/academic writing.  But this is a matter of style, not a matter of grammar.

Answer 36

Like everyone else has said, using the passive voice isn't "wrong;" it's just that most people prefer the active voice. Again, like everyone else has said, the active voice is more succinct and more direct. Usually the reader is more interested in who does something, rather than the object of that action.

However, there are cases in which the passive voice is rhetorically helpful--that is to say, more effective when making an argument. Let's say, for instance, that you're a prosecutor for a murder trial. The tactic you've chosen in making your cases involves painting a picture of the victim, characterizing the victim in such a way that the jury finds her sympathetic and is more likely to convict the defendant. You may start by describing the victim: "Sarah Marshall was a grade school teacher. She paid her taxes. She was a dog-walker. She was a mother of three." After you've described the victim, you have two ways to go about describing her death: the active voice ("He murdered her") or the passive voice ("She was murdered by him"). The active voice is fine, and even helpful, because it immediately connects the defendant to the act of the victim's murder and, in its brevity, it tonally communicates the brutality of the act. However, it also renders the victim--who, up to this point, was the subject of the argument--an object, thus placing her in a less rhetorically powerful position. The passive voice, in this case, highlights the tragedy of her death, because it places her as the primary focus of the sentence while immediately connecting her with a brutal death. In fact, because it's in the passive voice, the victim seems helpless; the murder happened to her, and she wasn't really involved in it. With the passive construction, the jury would keep the victim in mind, which (if the victim is particularly sympathetic) might help you win your case. 

Answer 37

A newspaper journalist may employ the use of the passive voice in writing an article to shift the focus of the doer of an action to a less important status to focus on that action/occurrence or because the writer is unsure of who performed that action.  This response speaks more to the particular genre of writing where one may realize the use of the passive voice.

Answer 38

passive and active forms of the same sentence are structurally (syntax) different while conveying the same meaning (semantic). Really, it is an arbitrary matter of preference.  However, it's not so "arbitrary" when it's your boss (or teacher) telling you which they prefer.  A more accurate response to your question would require more context.

Answer 39

Lisa A. gave a succinct and accurate assessment.  I just want to emphasize that it depends on the type of writing you are doing as to whether you use active or passive.   

Answer 40

It is not wrong to write in passive voice unless your grade depends upon writing in active voice.  If your teacher is teaching you to write for a standardized test, he or she likely wants you to stay in active voice.  Active voice is more interesting, more effective, and often easier to read.

Answer 41

Active sentences are generally more interesting, but there are a small number of instances in which using the passive voice makes more sense. For example, "I've been shot!" is much better than "An unknown assailant shot me" when you want to emphasize the fact that the main character has just been shot. In this case, the most important person in the sentence is the victim, not the unknown shooter.

Later in the story, it might be more important who did the shooting and then you might write instead, "Harvey shot me!" In that case, an accusation is being made and therefore it is the shooter who is the most important person in that sentence. (Notice that I said "an accusation is being made" instead of "someone made an accusation." I did that because I wanted the emphasis on the accusation and not the accuser.)

Most of the time you will need to use active voice, but if you find a sentence in which using active voice doesn't sound right, do this. Ask yourself, where does the emphasis belong? Who or what is the most important thing or person in the sentence, given the context?

Answer 42

ESLinStyle only posted 3 situations ;=}

Answer 43

Using the passive voice is not "wrong" but it is often not effective, especially in telling a story. It leaves the importance of the people involved in the action expressed vague. For instance, "Charlie bit me" (active) might be the beginning of a powerful story about the writer/speaker and Charlie, but "I was bitten by Charlie" (passive) leaves the reader/listener wondering if Charlie is important at all in this situation. The most interesting continuation of "I was bitten by Charlie", to me, would be "this time." In which case we have the beginning of a very different story, about the writer.   Hmmm.

Answer 44

The use of the passive voice is not by itself wrong. It's a matter of style and clarity. When you use the passive voice, the message can be less clear, confusing, or vague. As a result, most English teachers will tell you to use the active voice; they are, after all, trying to teach you how to be clear in your writing. Using the passive voice can be effective, for example, if you are focusing on the action and who did the action is not important. The hard part is knowing when to use it.

Answer 45

Most writing teachers are awful writers; you can improve your writing first by ignoring them, then by reading exceptional prose. Your style will naturally favor the active voice for a number of reasons that needn't be understood from the hyper-technical perspective favored by those who can't practice what they preach. The passive voice will find its proper place in your verbal repertoire just as naturally the active.

Answer 46

You commit no sin when you write in the passive voice. Many, if not most, use passive voice when they speak. So, the natural structure of your sentence may be passive. The crime comes when you fail to change the sentence to the stronger active voice for most papers.

Answer 47

When using the passive voice, the writer must be aware that s/he might bore the reader.  If the reader falls asleep, upon wakening, the reader may want to do one of several of these things: 1. rip up the book, 2. never read the author's work again, 3. re-write his essay.  Verbs, jumping, vibrating, tingling, are the stuff of making the reader sit up and read...  Another consideration for using a certain tense is this: 1. what audience am I writing for?  an audience who wants to be inspired? sleep? learn something? 

Answer 48

The short answer is: no,of course not.

Answer 49

The short answer is: it's wrong if your teacher says it's wrong. Every teacher has his or her likes and dislikes, and it's good to learn what each teacher wants and give it to them. That is what will give you higher grades. If your teacher doesn't care and it's up to you, remember thses things: In general, passive voice uses more words to say the same thing (this becomes important when you have word limits on what you're writing). Also keep in mind that the noun or pronoun that leads the sentence gets more emphasis. For instance: "The dog caught the ball" versus "The ball was caught by the dog." The second sentence has more words and the emphasis is on the ball.