Active or Passive Voice? Keep the Right Actor

Choose the construction that preserves what you know and puts the reader's question first. Name a known actor when the passage answers who did something. Keep an unknown actor unknown. When you want the reader to act, give a direct instruction.

In an active sentence, the grammatical subject is the doer. A passive sentence makes the affected person or thing the subject. Microsoft's verbs guide, checked on 8 October 2026, explains this distinction and generally favors active wording in its documentation. It also allows passive wording to emphasize a receiver or avoid awkward or accusatory phrasing, and recommends imperative mood for instructions.

Those are Microsoft's house choices, rather than a universal ban on a construction. Compare the facts and purpose of your own sentence before changing it. Identify the subject's relationship to the action; do not classify every form of be as passive.

The three cases below share a fictional catalogue-editing context. All facts and example sentences are supplied teaching material, with no actual catalogue incident or reader test behind them.

Name the known actor when the question is who

Supplied fact: The catalogue editor replaced the cover. The passage needs to say who made the change.

Before: “The cover was replaced by the catalogue editor.”

Choose: “The catalogue editor replaced the cover.”

Both versions identify the same actor, action and affected object. Both report a past event. The first puts the cover in the subject position; the second puts the catalogue editor there, matching the question about who acted.

The chosen version keeps the known responsibility visible at the start. It does not change replaced into will replace, drop the editor or add a reason for the replacement. The choice follows this passage's focus, rather than proving that the first sentence is always unsuitable.

Keep the remover unknown when the record does

Supplied fact: Two labels were removed from Folder A. The record does not name the remover. The passage reports what changed.

Before: “Two labels were removed from Folder A.”

Keep: “Two labels were removed from Folder A.”

Here the labels occupy the subject position and receive the action. The retained sentence reports the past removal, the count of two and the affected folder without assigning an actor.

Reject: “You removed two labels from Folder A.”

Reject: “The catalogue editor removed two labels from Folder A.”

Each rejected sentence adds an unsupported actor. The fact that the editor replaced the cover in the first case does not establish who removed these labels. Addressing your reader as you does not establish that they removed them either.

Keep the supported report even if an editing tool asks you to make it active. If identifying the remover matters to the article, obtain that missing information before naming anyone. A grammatical preference cannot supply the fact.

Give the reader the instruction directly

Supplied task: Your reader must copy the existing folder code to the index card.

Before: “The folder code is to be copied by you to the index card.”

Choose: “Copy the folder code to the index card.”

The chosen sentence uses imperative mood: it tells the reader what to do, with you understood as the subject. Voice concerns the subject's relationship to the action; mood concerns how the sentence presents that action. They describe different features of this instruction.

The reader still performs the copying, the existing folder code remains what they copy, and the index card remains its destination. This is an instruction to act, not a statement that the copying has already happened. The direct version gives the task without the longer is to be copied by you construction.

Check meaning before accepting the rewrite

Use three questions when editing a sentence:

• What is known? Keep the actor, action, affected object, count and timing supported by your notes. An unknown actor stays unknown.

• What should the passage answer? Put a known doer first for a question about responsibility; keep the affected thing central when reporting what changed.

• Is this a report or an instruction? Preserve a past event as a past event. Give the reader's intended action as an instruction, retaining its object and destination.

Use the article brief to name the question your passage must answer. The blogger's research guide helps connect that question to the wider topic, and the blog-writing guide helps turn it into a finished article. Accept a rewrite when it serves that purpose and preserves the facts, including the facts you do not have.