In Def. of Passive Voice

• Year: 2025
• Citation: Vol. 30 No. 3 Pg. 0058
• Pages: 0058

In Defense of Passive Voice No. Vol. 30 No. 3 Pg. 58 Georgia Bar Journal February, 2025

GBJ | Writing Matters

Used selectively and strategically, passive voice can be effective.

BY KAREN J. SNEDDON AND DAVID HRICIK

In this installment of "Writing Matters" we address the utility of passive voice. In past columns, we have emphasized that passive voice should generally be avoided. All good writing rules have their exceptions. This installment seeks to showcase the potential value of using passive voice in legal writing. We will define passive voice, share tips to identify it, recap reasons to avoid it, and then defend selective and strategic use of passive voice.

What Is Passive Voice?

Passive voice is a grammatical structure where the sentence's subject receives the verb's action rather than performing the action. The active voice construction is as follows: subject-verb-object. The passive voice construction flips the sentence order with the object leading the sentence and the subject relegated to the end of the sentence. The sentence construction for passive voice is as follows: object-verb-subject. Some examples follow.

How Can Passive Voice be Identified?

Passive constructions can be easy to spot. Look for sentences where there is no actor, such as "The success of tort reform legislation has been discussed for several years." In a past column, we explained that if you can add "by zombies" to the end of a...