Nobody in the sentence
Eight ordinary sentences with no agent in them. In seven, nothing is missing.
Match each to the reason the agent is not there.
Eight sentences, eight reasons. One reason is not a good one.
Two sentences, one grammar
The forms are checked in Leeds
Consider two sentences. The forms are checked in Leeds. And: Mistakes were made in the handling of the case.
Grammatically they are the same thing — a passive with no agent. Nobody complains about the first. People have been complaining about the second for a hundred years.
The difference is not in the grammar. It is in what the reader wanted to know. Nobody reading the first sentence wants the name of the clerk in Leeds; the information would not change anything they think or do. Readers of the second sentence want to know who made the mistakes, precisely because that would change something — and the sentence is built so that the question cannot be answered from it.
This matters for you in two directions. Most of the time you will leave the agent out and be right to: it is unknown, obvious, irrelevant, general, or simply not what your sentence is about. Occasionally you will leave it out and be doing something you did not intend, because English readers hear an absent-but-nameable agent very clearly, even when the writer did not put it there on purpose.
And in the other direction: a writer who has been warned about "mistakes were made" and then avoids the passive altogether writes worse process descriptions than they did before. The answer is not avoidance. It is the two-question test on the next page.
Four questions.
1. What is grammatically different between the two sentences?
2. What actually separates them?
3. What happens to a writer who avoids the passive entirely?
4. Can you produce the evasive effect by accident?
The five reasons, the one exception, and the test
Leave the agent out when it is…
| Reason | Example | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | The window was broken during the night. | You cannot name what you do not know |
| Obvious | He was arrested on Tuesday. | Only one kind of person arrests people |
| Irrelevant | The forms are checked in Leeds. | Naming the clerk would not change a thing you think or do |
| General | Rice is grown in the south. | People in general, not anybody in particular |
| Not the topic | It was scanned, sorted and loaded. | The sentence is about the parcel, and stays on it. This is the reason nobody teaches, and the one you will use most |
Add by when the agent is news
| Situation | Example |
|---|---|
| The agent is surprising | The report was written by an intern. |
| The agent has authority the reader needs to know about | The final decision is taken by a manager. |
| The agent is the point of the sentence | The mural was painted by the residents themselves. |
| The agent contrasts with another | The parts are made here, but the software is written by a company in Estonia. |
The two-question test. Before you leave an agent out, ask:
1 · Could I name it? If no — unknown, general, or a system rather than a person — you are finished. Leave it out.
2 · Would naming it change what the reader thinks or does? If no, leave it out; it is irrelevant, or it is not what your sentence is about. If yes — you can name it and it would change something — then leaving it out is the evasive case, whether or not you meant it that way.
Two questions, and only one combination of answers is a problem.
Five sentences. Run both questions on each.
1. Your application has been rejected. — sent to an applicant by a named committee
2. The samples are stored at minus twenty degrees.
3. It was decided not to renew the contract. — said by the person who decided
4. The bins are emptied on Tuesdays.
5. The library was demolished in 1974.
Putting people back in, and taking them out
One to five words per gap. Some gaps take a by-phrase; most do not. Decide with the test.
The building was completed in 1908 and twice since. The east wing was added in 1962, — an unusual choice at the time, and the reason the roofline does not match. The rooms every evening, and nobody needs naming for that. The decision to close the upper floor the head of estates in March, and staff by email two days later.
Seven sentences. Two have grammar errors. Five have an agent problem — either one that should not be there, or one that should.
1. The forms are checked by a clerk in Leeds by hand.
2. Your request has been declined. — written by the person who declined it
3. The rubbish is collected by the council workers on Tuesdays. — a description of the service
4. The mural was painted. — the residents painted it themselves, which is the whole point
5. It has decided that the branch will close.
6. The samples was collected by the morning shift.
7. Errors were made in the calculation. — you made them
The apology nobody wrote
Task card · Pairs · 10 minutes · Writing then speaking
Three sentences from institutional letters. Rewrite each so the agent is named — then decide whether the institution would publish your version.
Six minutes rewriting, four minutes arguing about the third one.
- Your appointment has been cancelled and will be rescheduled in due course.
- It was felt that the standard of work did not meet expectations.
- Mistakes were made in the handling of several applications last year.
- For each rewrite, say who now appears in the sentence — and what they have just admitted to.
The question underneath the task. Every rewrite makes the sentence clearer and costs somebody something. That is not an accident, and it is not a reason to keep the passive. It is the reason the passive gets used this way — and knowing that is the difference between using the grammar and being used by it.
What appeared in the sentence
Two questions.
1. When you named the agent, what usually appeared alongside it?
2. What does the two-question test actually protect you from?
Two questions, one bad combination
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. When is leaving the agent out a problem?
2. Which reason for omitting the agent will you use most often?
Next. Twenty-six minutes explaining something you actually understand, to somebody who will stop you the moment they lose the thread.