Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

Home ▼

How Zombies Can Help You Avoid Passive Voice: A 20-Minute

Writing Exercise
While writing a paper or dissertation, you may have heard
from your instructor, “Don’t use passive
voice!”

What is passive voice? I’ll give the technical and then

layperson’s definition, and I’ll show you an easy
and memorable trick to help
you identify passive voice in your own writing.

Technical definition of passive voice:

any form of writing that places the object being
acted upon before the initiator of the action
or makes it unclear as to who the
initiator of the action is.

Layperson’s definition of passive voice:

Writing “The ball was hit” rather than “John hit
the ball.”

As my colleague Rachel explained in her blog post on passive voice, spotting passive voice in your own
writing is as easy as looking
for those “be” words (“be given,” “be described,” etc.) followed by a verb in
past tense. Or, if you are
writing in the past tense, look for those “was” words (“was given,” “was
described,” etc.). You can also program Microsoft Word to identify passive voice automatically, but we
recommend
this method only as a partial solution and instead encourage you to rely on
your own eye
and ear.

Identifying passive voice is just the beginning,

however—next, you'll convert the language to active
voice. Here is one
writing activity, inspired by a single tweet and used by writing teachers around the
world, that will help you identify passive voice and convert it to active voice.
Step 1: Identify the verb
Identify the verb (action word). Here are three examples with the verb highlighted:

Mistakes were made.

In this case, the verb (action word) is “made.”

Methods for
performing improved security checks at baseball stadiums will be explored.
In this case, the verb is “explore.”

Page and Olson (2014)

described electronic health records as less user-friendly for older, less
tech-
savvy nurses.
In this case, the verb is “described.”
Step 2: Use "by zombies"
If you can insert the phrase, “by zombies” after the verb
you identified, it’s a good indicator that you
have written the sentence in
passive voice. To show what I mean, I will add this phrase to the two
examples
from above:

Mistakes were made by

zombies.

Methods for
performing improved security checks at baseball stadiums will be explored by
zombies.

Page and Olson (2014)

described by zombies electronic health records as less user-friendly for
older,
less tech-savvy nurses.

In the above cases, the phrase “by zombies” works

grammatically when placed in the first two
sentences, but not in the third. The
reason is simple: the third sentence already has “Page and Olson”
as the doers
of the action, otherwise known as the sentence’s subjects.
Step 3: Identify the "doer"
In the sentence(s) with passive voice, identify the subject
(doer of the action) and place it at the
beginning of the sentence.

For example:
Mistakes were made.
Who or what made mistakes?
o  
Nurses with limited technological savvy.

Methods for
performing improved security checks at baseball stadiums will be explored.
Who or what will explore these methods?
o  
“I” (the author) will!