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Appropriate uses of the passive voice

The passive voice is appropriate if you wish to emphasize the receiver of the action or to minimize the importance of the actor.

Heading: Appropriate passive. Example sentence: Many native Hawaiians were forced to leave their homes when the lava flow reached their village.

Heading: Appropriate passive. Example sentence: As the time for harvest approaches, the tobacco plants are sprayed with a chemical to retard the growth of suckers.

The writer of the first sentence wished to emphasize the receivers of the action, Hawaiians. The writer of the second sentence wished to focus on the tobacco plants, not on the people spraying them.

In much scientific writing, the passive voice properly emphasizes the experiment or process being described, not the researcher.

Heading: Appropriate passive. Example sentence: The solution was heated to the boiling point, and then it was reduced in volume by 50 percent.