Active Voice vs. Passive Voice

Use active voice, not passive voice

TSentences written in the active voice have a clear agent performing an action. The Office of Information prefers Advocacy staff write in the active voice for two reasons.

First, active voice makes clear the relationship between actor and agent. Active voice makes it easier for your audience to draw clear connections between actors and actions, forming a more coherent narrative.

Second, active voice encourages clear, readable sentences that your audience will be able to understand. This often means avoiding odd grammatical constructions that remove agents from sentences while increasing complexity.

Passive Voice	Active Voice
The IRFA was completed by the Environmental Protection Agency.	The Environmental Protection Agency completed the IRFA.
Data from the ACS survey was used in the analysis.	The authors used data from the ACS survey in the analysis.
A regression was performed on the data.	The authors performed a regression on the data.

To find sentences written in the passive voice, look for two main signifiers. First, passive sentences often use forms of “to be” (“are,” “is,” “was,” “were,” “had been,” etc.). Second, passive voice sentences often use a past participle, a verb form that typically has an “-ed” on the end of it. One of the best ways to eliminate passive voice from your writing is to expunge forms of “to be” whenever possible.

Of note: for attorneys writing about the law, when one action follows another as a matter of law, and there is no actor (besides the law itself) for the second action, passive voice is often the clearest form of expression. Additionally, when agents are unclear or do not matter, passive voice can be used safely. For more detail on these exceptions, see the Plain Language guide from OPM.