What counts as passive voice?
In “The volunteers drew the map,” the subject does the action. In “The map was drawn by the volunteers,” the map is the subject and receives the action. A passive sentence can name an actor with “by,” or leave it out, as in “The map was drawn on Friday.”
A form of be alone is common in ordinary descriptions. “The volunteers were tired” describes their condition. “The maps were surprising” describes an impression. Concise uses the verb and words around it to separate common cases like these from likely passives.
How to read the results
Start with Likely passive voice. Open a finding to see its verb highlighted in a short excerpt and whether Concise detected a “by” actor. Possible passive voice is worth a second look. “The shop was closed” can describe the state of the shop, or an action someone took. The checker cannot choose that meaning from the verb alone.
The percentage counts sentences with at least one likely passive. A sentence with two likely matches still counts once. The list shows the individual phrases and separates possible matches. You can test a single sentence or use Choose checks to turn on other types of feedback for a longer draft.
Try a manual revision
- Find the action. In “The invoices were checked,” the action is checking.
- Ask who did it. If you know and the reader needs to know, put that actor first.
- Read both versions. “The finance team checked the invoices” gives the reader a clear contact if a payment is missing.
If the actor is unknown, keep that uncertainty. “Two parcels were taken” may be more accurate than naming someone without evidence. A procedure may also lead with the object or result because that is the part the reader needs to follow.
Where the checker can miss
Concise looks for patterns such as was reviewed, had been checked and got delivered. It can miss a shortened phrase such as “the report written by the clerk” or misread a word that doubles as an adjective. Dates after “by” are often deadlines. The actor hint only reflects what this rule detects.
Read the whole sentence before making a change. For a second pass on sentence length and wording, check the draft’s overall readability. The rules and known limitations explain what this checker looks for.