Is it okay to have passive sentences if you're writing in the past tense?

Question

Or is it always frowned upon?

Answer 1

To keep the readers' attention, it's best to keep the voice as active as possible. Even if you're writing in the past tense, there are almost always ways to avoid passive voice.

Answer 2

If you're writing in Microsoft Word, go to Tools -> Options -> Spelling and Grammar tab -> then click "Show Readability Statistics" (the bottom checkbox). Now when you run the spell checker, it will also give you a box at the end that tells you your average words per sentence and the percentage of your sentences that are passive, as well as a "grade level" between 0 and 12 of how complex your writing is.

Writing that is 0% passive sentences tends to sound like a children's book - "Jane saw the dog. Jane petted the dog. The dog wagged its tail." On the other hand, writing that has too many passive sentences is hard to decipher - "The dog was visible from the street. The dog appeared pettable. His tail was being wagged."

A good writer strives for a balance - and the percentage of passive sentences you should use depends on the type of writing you're doing. Scientific writing needs to be more passive than fiction does because many of your sentences don't have an obvious "actor" - things like "Sulphur can be extracted from a variety of minerals" makes more sense than "People (or scientists, or miners, etc.) can extract sulphur from a variety of minerals."

Your teacher probably wants you to concentrate on condensing your writing and removing the passive sentences that aren't necessary, but good writing has some passive and some active sentences mixed together throughout.

Answer 3

The choice to avoid passive voice is not related to the choice of using past tense verbs. /

Most writing guides encourage writers to use active voice verbs because they produce a more forceful and less wordy sentence.

Active voice: John baked the cake. (4 words)
Passive voice: The cake was baked by John. (6 words)

Writers should choose passive voice verbs for a specific reason, not just let them happen in a sentence. There are several situations in which you may decide that passive voice is a better choice:

a. You don't know who performed the action. "The window WAS BROKEN between 2:00 and 2:30."

b. You know who did it, but you don't want to say who performed the action. "The fire alarm WAS PULLED this afternoon." Speaker knows who pulled the alarm, but does not want to identify the puller.

c. You want to put the emphasis of the sentence on the person who RECEIVED the action, not the person who PERFORMED the action. "Abraham Lincoln WAS ASSASSINATED in 1865." Speaker wants to emphasize Lincoln, not Booth.

By the way, passive voice verbs ALWAYS contain some form of the verb "to be." If you don't see one of these words in the verb, then it can't be passive voice: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been. Notice that all of the above examples contain one of these words.

However, not all uses of these verbs indicates a passive voice verb. "It is very hot today" does NOT contain a passive voice verb, even though the sentence contains the word "is."

Good luck with your grammatical journey.

Answer 4

Several of the answerers of your question clearly do not know what passive voice is. It is a transitive (or action) verb with the subject as the object of the action rather than the direct object. "The door was opened by someone else" (passive) rather than "someone else opened the door" (active).

Now as to your question, the passive voice is no more objectionable in the past tense than in the present and, strictly speaking, it would be grammatically correcte in either. However, stylistically, active verbs in the active voice sound more vibrant and ordinarily--but not always--are preferred to passive verbs (or linking verbs, but that's another issue).

What is most objectionable, however, is the use of the passive voice to avoid revealing the identity of the person taking the action. For example, "Evidence was presented to the President indicating that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Readers deserve to know who presented the evidence. If the actor is unknown, how can we know that the information is accurate? Another example, "Rumors are being spread around the Capitol that Ted Kennedy will vote for the bill." Who is spreading the rumors? Unless the speaker tells us who, we are inclined to suspect that the speaker himself or herself is making up or exaggerating rumors.

So, briefly, the answer to you question is (1) grammatically, passive voice is accurate in the past tense; (2) stylistially, active voice is usually preferred in the past as well as the present; and (3) passive voice should always be avoided if it is being used as a means to conceal the person who took the action.

Good luck!

Answer 5

unless you are writing some type of historical or scientific text, teachers will always frown upon the passive voice. I like it and think it's a great cop out, but w/e

Answer 6

You can write past tense without being overly passive.

For instance:

Passive- She started to walk out the door.
Non-Passive: She walked out the door.

Try to avoid "started to" or "began to' phrases as those can be passive. Use your instinct as far as if it sounds like you are IN The action or just describing it.

~Mandy