How to Write an Active Vs Passive Voice for History

In historical writing, the choice between active and passive voice determines how you assign agency to historical actors and events. While the active voice drives a narrative forward by identifying who performed an action, the passive voice is often used in historiography to emphasize the impact of large-scale social forces or when the perpetrator of a historical act is unknown.

What Is an Active Vs Passive Voice in History?

In history, the active voice places the subject (the historical actor) before the verb, making it clear who is responsible for a change or event. The passive voice shifts the focus to the recipient of the action or the action itself. Unlike the sciences, where passive voice is common to maintain objectivity, history relies heavily on the active voice to prove arguments about cause and effect and to avoid 'floating' historical processes that seem to happen without human intervention.

Before You Start

• Identify the primary actors in your thesis—are they individuals, governments, or social movements?
• Determine if your specific sub-field (e.g., Diplomatic History vs. Social History) has a preference for institutional agency.
• Review your primary sources to see if they clearly identify the 'doers' of the actions you are describing.
• Clarify whether your argument focuses on the intentions of leaders or the outcomes of systemic structures.

Identify the Historical Actor

Before writing a sentence, decide who or what is the primary driver of the action. If you are discussing a policy change, was it the monarch, the parliament, or a popular uprising?

Example: Instead of 'The Bastille was stormed,' use 'A Parisian mob stormed the Bastille.'

Tip: Using the active voice here assigns direct responsibility, which is crucial for cause-and-effect arguments.

Use Passive Voice to Emphasize the Victim or Recipient

In cases of systemic oppression or when the focus is on the group affected rather than the oppressor, the passive voice can be a deliberate rhetorical choice to highlight the experience of the marginalized.

Example: Instead of 'The government displaced thousands,' use 'Thousands were displaced by the new land enclosures.'

Tip: Only use this if the suffering of the population is the central theme of your paragraph.

Deploy Active Voice for Historiographical Debates

When discussing how other historians have interpreted an event, use the active voice to engage directly with their arguments. This shows you are participating in a scholarly conversation.

Example: Instead of 'It is argued that the frontier was closed,' use 'Frederick Jackson Turner argues that the frontier was closed.'

Tip: Naming the historian makes your literature review much more authoritative.

Avoid the 'Passive Bureaucrat' in Political History

Historians often slip into passive voice when describing government actions, which obscures who actually made the decisions. Force yourself to name the specific department or leader.

Example: Instead of 'A new tax was implemented,' use 'The Pitt administration implemented a new tax on windows.'

Tip: This prevents your history from sounding like it happened in a vacuum.

Use Passive Voice When the Actor is Unknown

In ancient or medieval history, primary sources often leave the specific actor ambiguous. In these cases, the passive voice is the most intellectually honest choice.

Example: The Lindisfarne Gospels were likely produced over several decades.

Tip: If the evidence doesn't support a specific person, don't invent one for the sake of active voice.

Activate Your Verbs in Social Movements

When writing about collective action, use active verbs to show that the movement had agency and was not just a reaction to external stimuli.

Example: Instead of 'Change was demanded by the suffragettes,' use 'The suffragettes demanded the right to vote through hunger strikes.'

Tip: Active verbs make your description of social change more dynamic and persuasive.

Check for 'To Be' Verbs in Your Draft

Scan your essay for 'is', 'was', 'were', and 'been'. These are often markers of passive voice that can be replaced with more descriptive, active historical verbs.

Example: Change 'The treaty was signed in 1919' to 'The Allied powers signed the Treaty of Versailles.'

Tip: Active verbs like 'negotiated', 'resisted', or 'transformed' add much more flavor to your writing.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Using passive voice to avoid taking a stand on a controversial historical interpretation.
• Vague agency, such as 'It was felt that...', which fails to identify which group or individual held that feeling.
• Overusing the passive voice in the thesis statement, which weakens the overall argument of the paper.
• Assuming that 'History' is an actor (e.g., 'History shows that...') rather than analyzing specific human actions.
• Switching voices mid-paragraph, which confuses the reader about who is driving the narrative.

Pro Tips

• Read your work aloud; if a sentence sounds like a dry textbook, it likely relies too heavily on the passive voice.
• Reserve the passive voice for describing large-scale trends where no single individual is responsible, such as 'The plague was spread via trade routes.'
• In the American Historical Review, active voice is the gold standard for clear, argumentative prose.
• When analyzing primary source documents, use the active voice to describe what the author is doing (e.g., 'Equiano recounts his journey...').
• Use the 'by zombies' test: if you can add 'by zombies' after the verb, it is passive (e.g., 'The city was burned [by zombies]').

Frequently Asked Questions

Is passive voice ever acceptable in a history paper?

Yes, passive voice is acceptable when the actor is unknown, when you want to emphasize the person or thing acted upon, or when describing a general state of affairs where agency is diffuse.

Does active voice make my history writing sound too informal?

Not at all. In fact, active voice is the hallmark of professional academic history because it requires precision and specific evidence regarding who did what.

Should I use active voice in my historiography section?

Absolutely. You should always use the active voice when discussing historians (e.g., 'E.P. Thompson contends...') to clearly attribute ideas to their respective authors.

How do I fix a passive sentence without a clear subject?

You must return to your research. If you find a passive sentence like 'The laws were changed,' look back at your notes to find out exactly which legislative body or leader changed them.

Related Resources

• How to Write an Active Vs Passive Voice for Computer Science

• How to Write an Active Vs Passive Voice for Biology

• How to Write an Active Vs Passive Voice for Psychology

• How to Write a Sentence Rewriting for History

• How to Write Topic Sentences for History

• How to Write a Paragraph Structure for History

• Find Peer-Reviewed Sources with Sourcely

• Polish Your Writing with Revise AI