When to Use Passive Voice on Purpose (and When It Flags You as Non-Native)

Passive voice instruction tends toward one of two extremes. The formal-English-focused approach says to use passive voice for professional writing because it sounds "more objective." The modern business writing guide says to eliminate passive voice entirely because it is vague and evasive. Both are wrong, and following either rule produces writing with a mechanical quality that experienced readers notice.

The real skill is knowing when passive voice serves a genuine purpose and when it is doing something else — hiding agency, adding false formality, or carrying over a habit from your first language.

When Passive Voice Is the Right Choice

When the agent is unknown or irrelevant:
"The file was corrupted" is correct when you do not know or do not need to say who corrupted it. "Someone corrupted the file" would imply blame or knowledge you do not have.

When the focus belongs on the object of the action, not the doer:
"The proposal was approved by the board" is sometimes better than "The board approved the proposal" when the approval itself — and what it means for the reader — is the important news. Scientific and technical writing uses this frequently: "The samples were incubated at 37°C" places focus on what happened to the samples, not who incubated them.

When accountability needs to be softened deliberately:
In communication where you are delivering bad news without assigning blame — corporate announcements, customer-facing messages, post-mortems — passive voice removes the agent on purpose.

"Your order was delayed due to a fulfilment issue" is softer than "We delayed your order." Both are honest. The choice depends on the relationship and context.

In formal academic and regulatory writing:
Certain document types — research papers, legal documents, policy documents — use passive voice as a stylistic convention that signals the genre. Using active voice throughout a formal scientific paper can read as stylistically incongruent.

When Passive Voice Flags L1 Transfer

The problematic patterns are different from the deliberate uses above.

Passive where active is more natural:
"The meeting was attended by all team members" → "All team members attended the meeting."
"The report was submitted by me on Friday" → "I submitted the report on Friday."

When the agent is known and relevant, active voice is almost always more direct and natural in English.

Passive as a universal formality signal:
This is the pattern I see most often from writers with Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, or Japanese backgrounds. In several Asian languages, certain passive or formal constructions signal respect or professionalism. That habit carries over into English as reaching for passive voice whenever the writing needs to feel formal. English does not work that way. Passive voice does not make writing more professional — it makes it more distant. Professional English writing is precise and direct.

Before: "It has been decided that the project will be discontinued."

After (if this is an internal email to your team): "We've decided to discontinue the project. Here's why:"

Passive stacking:
Multiple consecutive passive clauses produce a foggy, bureaucratic texture.

Before: "The data was collected, the analysis was performed, and the conclusions were drawn based on the results that were obtained."

After: "We collected the data, ran the analysis, and drew conclusions from the results."

The Korean and Japanese "Was Done By" Pattern

Writers whose first language is Korean or Japanese sometimes produce constructions like "It was confirmed by me that..." or "It was proposed by the team that..." These follow the passive-agent structure of English grammar but feel unusual because native speakers rarely use this construction for agentive statements. The natural forms are "I confirmed that..." and "The team proposed that..."

This is specifically flagged in Local Tone's analysis for Korean and Japanese regional settings.

A Practical Decision Rule

Ask: does the reader need to know who did this?

• Yes, and it is you: Use active voice.
• Yes, and it is someone else: Use active voice, name them.
• No, or the identity is truly unknown: Passive voice is appropriate.
• You are softening accountability deliberately: Passive voice is a conscious choice — use it.

Everything else: default to active.

A secondary question worth asking: would a native English speaker write this sentence in passive voice, or does it only feel natural because of how the equivalent construction works in your first language? If you are not sure, rewrite it in active voice and compare the two. If the active version sounds clipped or odd, the passive may genuinely be the right choice. If the active version reads naturally, use it.

The test catches most passive-as-formality cases, because when you convert them to active voice they almost always read more naturally, not worse. The exception is when passive voice genuinely serves a rhetorical purpose — in which case your active-voice version will obviously feel worse, confirming that the passive was the right call.

Quick Reference: Passive vs. Active Voice

In Practice

Ji-woo is a project coordinator at a consulting firm in Brisbane. Her written English is strong, but she grew up writing Korean, where impersonal, formal constructions are a sign of professionalism. When she emails her team about a missed deadline, she writes: "It was identified that there was a delay in the delivery of the design assets, and it has been decided that the launch date will be adjusted accordingly." Her manager asks her in a follow-up call: "Who identified this? And who decided to adjust the date — did you make that call or do we need sign-off from the client?"

Ji-woo realises the passive constructions hid the information her manager needed. She revises her standard update format: "I identified a delay in the design asset delivery. I've adjusted the launch date by one week — let me know if that needs client sign-off." The second version takes three fewer words and answers both questions before they are asked. She starts applying the active-voice default to all her internal updates, and finds that her follow-up questions from the team drop significantly.

How to Self-Check Before You Send

1. Highlight every "was" and "were" in your draft and check whether a named agent belongs in front of each one.
2. For each passive construction, ask: is the agent unknown, irrelevant, or deliberately omitted for tone? If none of those apply, rewrite in active voice.
3. Look for consecutive passive sentences — if two or more appear in a row, rewrite at least the first one in active voice to break the pattern.
4. Check your opening sentence: if it begins with "It has been..." or "It was..." you are almost certainly burying the main point — rewrite it with a named subject.
5. If you are from a Korean, Japanese, Cantonese, or Mandarin background, specifically check for "was [verb] by me" constructions — these are almost always better rewritten as "I [verb]."
6. After converting a passive to active, read both versions aloud. If the active version reads more naturally, use it. If it feels clipped or wrong, the passive may have been the right call.

Frequently Asked Questions

My English teacher always told me passive voice sounds more professional. Was that wrong?

It is a common teaching shortcut that causes long-term problems. In certain formal document types — academic papers, regulatory filings, legal contracts — passive voice is a genre convention and does signal the right register. But in professional email, internal reports, and business communication, passive voice does not add professionalism; it adds distance and vagueness. The confusion comes from applying a rule that is context-specific as if it were universal. Your teacher was probably right for formal academic writing. They were not right for workplace email.

How do I know if my passive voice is L1 transfer or a deliberate choice?

The clearest test: convert it to active voice and compare. If the active version reads as natural or better, your passive was probably habit, not strategy. If the active version clearly loses something — it sounds accusatory where the passive is appropriately neutral, or it names an agent where anonymity is the whole point — the passive was deliberate. Most passive-as-formality cases fail this test immediately, because "We've decided to discontinue the project" is obviously cleaner than "It has been decided that the project will be discontinued."

Is there a word count or frequency target for passive voice in a document?

No. Frequency rules like "passive voice should be under 10% of sentences" are not useful because they do not distinguish between deliberate and accidental passive. One misplaced passive in a key sentence does more damage than ten appropriate passives in a research summary. The quality of each choice matters, not the count.

How Local Tone Handles This

Local Tone identifies passive constructions and evaluates whether they serve one of the legitimate purposes above or represent first-language-influenced filler formality. The analysis flags problematic patterns while leaving deliberate uses in place. The notes explain the specific reason for each flag, so you can make an informed decision about whether to accept the rewrite or keep your original.

For related reading, see the politeness gap in Asian English and writing critical feedback in English without sounding cold.