Active and Passive Voice

Interrogative. The question form is kept.

Active: Did the court dismiss the appeal?

Passive: Was the appeal dismissed by the court?

Active: Who wrote this?

Passive: By whom was this written?

Active: Whom did they arrest?

Passive: Who was arrested by them?

Active: What are you doing?

Passive: What is being done by you?

Negative. The negative stays with the auxiliary.

Active: He did not sign the deed.

Passive: The deed was not signed by him.

Verbs of perception and reporting. A special construction.

Active: People say that he is honest.

Passive: It is said that he is honest. Or: He is said to be honest.

Active: They believe that the will is forged.

Passive: It is believed that the will is forged.

Sentences with a preposition attached to the verb. The preposition stays with the verb.

Active: They laughed at him.

Passive: He was laughed at.

Active: The neighbours looked after the child.

Passive: The child was looked after by the neighbours.

Active: Someone has taken away the file.

Passive: The file has been taken away.

Where "by" is not the right preposition. Some passives take "with", "to" or "at".

The room was filled with smoke. The judge was known to everybody. She was surprised at the order. He is interested in the case.

Sentences that cannot be changed

The trap in this question, and the reason to read the sentence before starting.

Intransitive verbs. He slept. The court rose. The bell rang. Nothing to make into a subject.

Verbs of state. He has a car; the box contains papers; the coat suits you; this book belongs to me. These are transitive in form but not in sense, and are not converted.

Reflexive constructions. He hurt himself.

The four continuous forms named above.

When to omit the agent

The "by" phrase is dropped in four cases, and dropping it correctly is worth a mark.

1. When the doer is unknown. The file has been misplaced.
2. When the doer is obvious. The accused was convicted. Obviously by the court.
3. When the doer is unimportant. The plaint was filed on 4 April.
4. When the doer is a vague "people", "somebody", "they". English is spoken all over the world.

Why legal writing uses the passive so much

This is the paragraph that turns a grammar answer into a law student's answer.

Because the doer is often irrelevant or deliberately unnamed. "The appeal was dismissed" is about the fate of the appeal; the identity of the bench is in the cause title.

Because a statute speaks about acts, not about actors. "No suit shall be instituted after the period of limitation" applies to everybody, and naming a doer would narrow it.

Because the form is impersonal, and the law prefers to speak impersonally. "It is ordered that" and "it was held that" put the institution in front of the individual.

And the criticism, which is equally worth making. Excessive passive makes writing heavy and can conceal responsibility. "Mistakes were made" says nothing about who made them. Modern drafting manuals, in India and elsewhere, urge plain language and the active voice wherever the doer matters. A good rule for your own writing: use the passive when the doer is genuinely irrelevant, and the active when it is not.

A worked answer

Question. "Change the voice: (a) The Bar Council prescribes the standards of professional conduct. (b) Who has broken the window? (c) Let the door be closed. (d) People say that he is a great advocate."

Answers with reasons.

(a) The standards of professional conduct are prescribed by the Bar Council. Simple present active becomes "are" plus the past participle.

(b) By whom has the window been broken? Interrogative with "who" as subject: the passive begins "by whom", and the auxiliary keeps the tense.

(c) Close the door. This one is given in the passive and is turned back into the active imperative.

(d) It is said that he is a great advocate, or He is said to be a great advocate. Both are accepted, and giving both shows you know the construction.

Quick revision

Active: subject does. Passive: subject receives. Only transitive verbs convert.

Three steps: object becomes subject; "be" in the same tense plus past participle; old subject after "by", omitted when unknown, obvious, unimportant or vague.

Two objects: either can become the subject. Imperative: use "let". Interrogative: keep the question form and begin "by whom" where necessary. Prepositions stay attached: he was laughed at.

Not convertible: intransitive verbs, verbs of state, reflexives, and the four continuous forms, the present perfect continuous, past perfect continuous, future continuous and future perfect continuous.

Some passives take with, to, at or in rather than by.

Legal writing uses the passive because the actor is often irrelevant and the statute speaks about acts, but the passive also conceals responsibility, so use the active where the doer matters.

Test yourself

1. What is the condition for converting a sentence into the passive? The verb must be transitive, that is, it must take an object, because the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive one. A sentence with an intransitive verb, such as "the court rose", has nothing to make into a subject and cannot be converted.

2. Convert: "The clerk gave the judge the file." Either "The judge was given the file by the clerk" or "The file was given to the judge by the clerk", because the sentence has two objects and either may become the subject of the passive.

3. Which tenses have no ordinary passive? The present perfect continuous, the past perfect continuous, the future continuous and the future perfect continuous. Forms such as "has been being written" are not used, and a candidate should say so rather than invent one.

4. When is the "by" phrase omitted? When the doer is unknown, obvious, unimportant, or a vague "people" or "they". So "the accused was convicted" needs no agent, because only a court convicts.

5. Why does legal writing use the passive, and what is the objection to it? Because a statute speaks of acts rather than actors, so naming a doer would narrow the rule, and because the impersonal form suits an institution. The objection is that the passive can hide responsibility, as in "mistakes were made", and that heavy use of it makes writing hard to read, which is why plain-language drafting prefers the active where the doer matters.