Text & Writing

Passive Voice Detector

Finds passive constructions, adverbs and hedging words.

What it does. Passive voice moves the actor out of the subject position: "the file was deleted" instead of "the system deleted the file". It is detected here by a form of <em>to be</em> followed by a past participle. Passive is not an error — it is the right choice when the actor is unknown or unimportant — but overuse makes writing vague about who did what.

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How to use Passive Voice Detector

Paste your draft.
Review the highlighted passages and why each was flagged.
Rewrite the ones where the actor genuinely matters.

When passive is the right choice

The advice to "avoid passive voice" is stated far too absolutely. Passive exists because sometimes the actor is unknown, irrelevant, or deliberately de-emphasised.

"The samples were incubated for 24 hours" is correct scientific writing — who did the incubating is not the point, and naming them would be noise. "Mistakes were made" is the abuse of the same property, using it to hide an actor who does matter.

So the question is never "is this passive?" but "does the reader need to know who did this?". If yes, make it active. If no, leave it.

What else gets flagged

Adverbs ending in -ly. Often a sign a weak verb is being propped up: "walked slowly" against "ambled".
Hedging — "somewhat", "fairly", "rather", "quite". Usually removable with no loss.
Zombie nouns. Verbs turned into nouns: "make a decision" instead of "decide", "provide assistance" instead of "help".
Long sentences. Anything past about 25 words is worth a second look.
"There is" and "It is" openings, which delay the subject.

None of these is a rule. They are patterns that correlate with unclear writing often enough to be worth reviewing, and every one of them is correct somewhere.

Detection is imperfect and that is expected

Identifying passive voice reliably needs to know whether a word is a past participle, and English is full of forms that are both. "The door was closed" is passive if someone closed it and a description of a state if it simply was not open.

The detector here uses a participle list plus irregular forms, and will occasionally flag an adjective.

Treat every flag as a question, not a verdict. A checker that is never wrong about this would need to understand the sentence, which is a different class of tool.

Frequently asked questions

Is passive voice wrong?

No. It is the right choice when the actor is unknown, irrelevant or deliberately de-emphasised — as in most scientific method sections. The problem is using it to obscure an actor the reader needs.

How do I convert passive to active?

Find who did the action and make them the subject. "The report was written by the team" becomes "The team wrote the report". If you cannot identify the actor, the passive may genuinely be correct.

Why was a sentence flagged that is not passive?

Because "was closed" is passive if someone closed it and descriptive if it merely was not open. Distinguishing them requires understanding the sentence. Treat every flag as a question rather than a verdict.

What is a zombie noun?

A verb turned into a noun — "make a decision" for "decide", "provide assistance" for "help". They add words and drain energy, and converting them back to verbs usually shortens the sentence.

Are adverbs bad?

No, but a pile of -ly adverbs often marks weak verbs being propped up. "Ambled" carries what "walked slowly" needs two words to say.