Let's Discuss the Passive Voice
I’ve been focusing a great deal of effort these days on the dreaded passive voice and why one should avoid it at all costs when writing history essays. Why? because using it tends to obscure the historical actor’s agency. Yes people do things, and those things lead to change over time. You should always be clear about who is doing the things. I recently did a short video on this and posted it to Insta and TikTok…so you should follow me there for more writing tips. And I recently published a book called Mastering the Past, which goes a little deeper on writing essays - here’s an excerpt on the passive voice:
In the passive voice, the action’s target is the focus of the sentence, followed by some conjugated form of the verb “to be” followed by another verb acting upon whoever or whatever is doing the action, which is either implied or absent from the sentence. For example (and this is a simple one…) “The ball was thrown.” The issue here is that in this sentence we do not know who threw the ball. To fix this you might say, “The ball was thrown by Bob,” which clears things up but is still a pretty clunky sentence and still in the passive voice. Rather, frame the sentence in the active voice: “Bob threw the ball.” The reason the active voice framing is so much better is that it is crystal clear who is doing the action and situates the actor the subject of the sentence. You might be asking – who cares about all this? This is a fair question. So, here’s why. Historians think a lot about agency, or rather, how individuals and groups in the past shaped the course of historical events and processes. In other words – people DID things and history changed because of it. So, when one writes in the passive voice, he or she denies the historical actor agency. The reader is then left to wonder who did the thing. In history this is extremely important. Observe these few examples of sentences written in the passive voice and you will see what I mean.
- The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863 proclaiming freedom for enslaved individuals in the Confederate states during the American Civil War.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and ensuring rights for all Americans.
- The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, asserting the colonies’ separation from British rule and laying the foundation for the formation of the United States.
- The Manhattan Project was initiated during World War II, resulting in the development of the atomic bomb and ultimately leading to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- The Louisiana Purchase was made in 1803 when the United States acquired as vast territory from France, doubling the size of the young nation and shaping its future expansion.
What do these sentences have in common? They are all in the passive voice and they all obscure the historical actors who put these events in motion. Note the conjugated form of the verb, “to be” followed by another verb in the past tense. You’ll see that each sentence uses it: “was issued,” “was signed,” “was adopted,” “was initiated,” and “was made.” If a student asked me to comment on a paper that included these sentences, I would underscore all of them asking: who did the things? Implication is not enough. When writing history, you have to be specific or you deny the historical actor/s their agency. It’s quite easy to fix this issue – simply make the historical actor the subject of the sentence and have the direct object receive the action. For example:
- Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863…
- Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law prohibiting discrimination…
- The founding fathers adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776…
- The federal government under Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated the Manhattan Project during World War II…
- Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 when the United States acquired…
So there you go - easy peasy. Now, if you have just discovered that you use the passive voice in your history papers all the time don’t despair. You are not stupid, lazy, or racist (yes…I once called out an academic nitwit on social media who insisted that use of the passive voice was racist. She blocked me. Go figure…). It just takes some practice and a little effort proofreading and you will get out of the habit soon enough. Ask your teacher to help you - and if he or she is any good, they’ll be happy to oblige.
With compliments,
Keith