A friend submitted an article to a journal. The reviewer wanted the passive voice removed from the beginning of a particular section of the article, and the friend wanted to know what’s involved in that kind of revision. The section in question is here.
There are two things to consider: 1) what is exactly is the difference between active and passive voice, and 2) how do you edit the passive out?
1) The basic difference between passive and active voice is that, while the meaning is the same, the actor (the subject) changes:
A The dog bit the man. (active voice)
B The man was bitten by the dog. (passive voice)
An obvious difference is that the passive version is longer, which is why the active is encouraged: shorter is generally better.
There are two other important points about the passive version, though. One is that it includes was, a form of the verb to be, which we tend to rely on heavily anyway. Since the passive voice requires to be, it can contribute to the repetition of an already overused form.
The second point about version B can be important, although in our sample paragraph, it isn’t. Sometimes people leave the end off, so that instead of The man was bitten by the dog, they write The man was bitten. This means there’s less information than in the first sentence; in particular, it means that the entity that actually did something — the doer, the agent, the dog — is omitted. Sometimes writers do this deliberately, to downplay responsibility: it’s much nicer to say The money was misplaced than The money was misplaced by our company.
Let’s look at how sentences begin in the first paragraph:
The first stage …was… /A series was reproduced…/These included…/Materials used…were…
I don’t think there’s really an overuse of passives, but the ones that are there tip the balance of verbs so that three-quarters of them involve to be. That’s a lot. And the repetition is not just of the verb to be; there’s structural repetition as well. The sentences follow the same opening pattern: subject-verb, subject-verb. It’s not something readers will necessarily notice, but they might think it sounds repetitive without really knowing why.
When we get to the second paragraph, the prose style at first seems tighter and more immediate:
Rast knapped… /He produced…/However, he made the burin-like tools with the aid of an electric grinder. /The abrader was an unmodified sandstone cobble./ Most of these tools were hafted…some….were used…
The first three sentences, I think, work well: there’s the sense of energy provided by the active, and the subject-verb pattern is varied slightly in the third sentence with the addition of However. That energy slides a bit as the paragraph goes on, but realistically we can’t leave out the verb to be altogether: it’s a question of substituting where possible, and alternating so it’s not jumping off the page all the time.
Let’s look at the first paragraph again.
Sentence 1: The first stage in the reproduction project was to manufacture an assemblage of appropriate lithic tools.
That one looks OK to me, although you could if you wanted say something like For the first stage in the reproduction project, we [or: the team] manufactured… Some academic journals don’t encourage the first person (I/we); others do.
Sentence 2: A series was reproduced, some hafted to wooden handles and others hand held (Figure 6).
Here, it would be good to start cutting down on to be. How about:
[We/person X/the team] reproduced a series of tools, some hafted to wooden handles and others hand held (Figure 6).
(What about hand held/handheld/hand-held? Not today. Check the dictionary that’s being used for the project in question.)
Sentence 4: Materials used to make these tools were the same as those the Dorset would have used; indeed the fine-grained chert used came from Cow Head, the same region of northwestern Newfoundland where the Dorset collected most of their lithic raw material.
This sentence has a few past participles that are a sort of compressed passives: Materials [that were] used, fine grained chert [that was] used. They can add to the feeling of passive overload. It is possible to leave them out or work around them? (X made these tools from the same materials the Dorset used…)
Instead of “chert used came,” which is a bit awkward and, because of the used, sounds like another passive, can you reword this bit? Indeed, the fine-grained chert that … what can you say besides was used… formed the handle? … I don’t know what chert is used for.
I can’t rewrite any of this properly without knowing more about the subject, but here’s an example. It’s not a perfect edit, but I’ve cut three instances of the verb to be and two of used in a short space, which should make a difference.
Summary
The passive voice is not evil, but it does call for the verb to be, which we use a lot anyway; it also tends to lengthen sentences and to make it easier to leave out key information (who did the thing that was done). If those things all work well for the intended readership, fine. Most writers, though, will want to consider whether they’re using the passive more than necessary, and to convert some verbs to the active voice.