As a student or a professional writer, there is a good chance you’ve been told to avoid passive voice. But have you ever questioned the reasoning behind this unassuming rule? If you are here looking for answers on how to avoid the passive voice or even how to correct passive voice in your writing, you have come to the right place.

In this article, we are going to look at what passive voice is, the consequences of passive voice construction, and lastly, tips on how to get rid of passive voice in your writing.

What Is Passive Voice?

Put simply, passive voice sentence construction is formed when the subject in a sentence is receiving an action as opposed to performing it. It is the inverse opposite of active voice, whereby the subject performs the action.

Example:

Active voice: John ate the pizza. 

Passive voice:  The pizza was eaten by John.

As illustrated by the example above, using passive voice can make your sentences wordy and awkward. Still, arbitrary use of passive voice can water down your prose and even make your texts sound boring. With that said, however, there are instances where using passive is readily accommodated. In scientific writing, for example, passive voice use allows you to write without using personal pronouns or naming specific people as the subjects.

Example: 

• The entrance exam was failed by a quarter of the applicants to the college.
• A pioneering experimental cancer treatment was conducted successfully today.

As you can see, passive voice use in the example above illustrates a bi-partisan, fact-based statement. The writer has conclusively presented their research and conclusion, all without using personal pronouns or attributing their findings to particular agents. In other words, the information is conveyed without the slightest influence by personal interests or individual perspectives.

3 Tips on How to Remove Passive Voice Manually

Trying to solve a problem without identifying the root cause amounts to wasted time and resources. Likewise, the first step toward solving passive voice construction lies in identifying passive voice expressions in your sentences.  

• The first and easiest way to identify passive-voice expressions is to establish the location of the subject and the action in a sentence. If the subject in a sentence is receiving an action instead of performing it, you have passive voice construction. In this case, you can eliminate passive voice by ensuring the subject is the one performing the action.

• Another easy way to recognize passive-voice construction is the omission of the subject in a sentence or their inclusion after the action has already happened.

Example: 

Passive: Ukraine was invaded.

Passive: Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

Fixing passive voice in these two examples will entail making the doer go first.

Active: Russia invaded Ukraine.

• The last and certainly not the least tip to identify passive voice is to check for the presence of a past participle immediately after the form of “to be.” 

Is There an Alternative Way to Get Rid of Passive Voice?

No matter how proficient you are as a student or a writer, some passive voice expressions slip through the cracks and sneak into your first draft. Whilst it’s possible to manually comb through your texts pinpointing and removing passive voice, the process can be mentally taxing and time-consuming. 

And that’s where our free online passive checker comes in. Powered by English grammar rules and advanced AI algorithms, the tool serves as the ideal torpedo to remove passive voice construction in your sentences, as well as provide the appropriate suggestions to correct the mistakes. 

Other Features of Our Passive Voice Checker

Using a single online editing tool to identify grammatical glitches is a big enough challenge for many people. Now, imagine trying the same using multiple, dispersed, and niche-based online proofreading tools, and the stakes can start to rise significantly.

If you are tired of operating multiple tabs to access different proofreading tools, our website houses multiple writing and proofreading tools, all under one roof. 

Let’s take a look at some of the supplementary features of our website that you can leverage to improve the quality of your writing:

Grammar and spelling checker. Avoiding passive voice aside, our tool has your back with one of the most sophisticated grammar and spelling checkers out there. Using this feature, you can easily identify and correct misspelled words, misused words, or any other grammar-related errors. 

Punctuation checker. Our tool also doubles as a comprehensive punctuation checker by applying instant corrections on punctuation mistakes. Whether it’s a comma splice, a run-on sentence, or a dangling modifier, the tool will make all punctuation-related errors a thing of the past.

Voice changer website. The tone of your writing reflects your attitude toward the subject matter. To strike the correct tone, you need to use words and phrases that resonate with the readers, either in their humorous or restrained nature. Our voice changer app can analyze your word choice, capitalization, and punctuation to identify the underlying tone of your texts.

Plagiarism checker. Our comprehensive plagiarism checker compares your texts against billions of published academic papers, research papers, articles, and books to identify accidental plagiarism.

Why Use Our Online Passive Checker Website?

Today, there are multiple grammar checkers currently available on the market. Unfortunately, not all of them are cut from the same cloth. Some offer a combination of fair cost, incredible accuracy, and speed, while other sophisticated versions are mediocre at best, often missing even the most glaring mistakes.

So what sets our online passive voice checker apart from the rest? 

Below, are a few compelling reasons why you should consider using our tool: 

Time-Saving. Compared to the time-intensive manual proofreading, our passive will save you plenty of time by providing real-time feedback. This allows you to focus on other important aspects of your writing such as writing and researching. All you need to do is paste your typed text on the tool’s editor and leave it to handle the rest.

Accurate. Our passive checker is powered by English language rules and sophisticated AI algorithms, giving it unmatched accuracy in flagging and correcting multiple grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Conceptual learning. If you are an English learner, our tool lets you build and reinforce your English language foundation. It profiles parts of your content, identifies mistakes, suggests possible corrections, and even provides feedback on every underlying issue.  Add the thesaurus dictionary into the equation, and you have an all-rounded English language conceptual learning platform.

Convenient. Our passive voice app seamlessly integrates with popular productivity programs such as Microsoft Office and Google Docs, ensuring both your online and offline documents are properly polished. It is also available as a Chrome extension, enabling you to deliver error-free emails and chats.

24/7 Availability. If you are always on the move, our passive voice checker free tool is cloud-hosted, making it available all the time.

How to Get Rid of Passive Voice Using Our Tool

To get rid of passive voice in your writing using our tool, follow these easy steps.

• Copy/paste your text into the tool’s editor.
• Click on the Check button and wait for a few seconds.
• The tool will return feedback highlighting all the passive voice phrases in your writing.
• Accept the suggestions by clicking on the highlighted mistakes.

Get rid of passive voice expressions today and make your texts clearer, more vibrant, and far more enjoyable to read.