All writers should devote part of their editing stage to weeding out passive sentences. After all, the proliferation of such constructions can single-handedly turn a promising paper into a boring and vague mess of words.
Do write in a passive or in an active voice? Although most writers use active voice in their writing, passive voice is still of importance. But somehow, to make it work, you need to know how to write your sentence well.
Now, the passive voice isn’t all bad. In fact, there are cases when you can let it pass. When you encounter one in editing and it falls under one of these situations, you may proceeed to the next sentence if you’re too pressed for time to rewrite:
1. When the actor is unknown.
2. When the actor is irrelevant.
3. When you intentionally want to be vague to avoid pointing fingers.
4. When you’re talking about a general truth.
5. When you want to emphasize the object acted on.
6. When it is required in your field (i.e. most scientific genres).
Other than those six situations, it’s usually the smart play to rewrite passive sentences into an active construction.
1. Most grammar checking software can help check for passive sentences. Use them, especially as a first pass, when cleaning up your draft.
2. After that, be on the lookout for forms of the verb “to be” with a relevant actor missing from the statement.
3. When rewriting, a good rule of thumb is start out with the actor. Doing so leaves your sentence no choice but to finish in an active voice.