Just FYI, despite widespread ranting on the intarwebs, “Passive Voice” =/= “Vagueness regarding agency.”
Brutus stabbed Caesar -> Active voice
Caesar was stabbed by Brutus -> Passive voice
Agentless passives can be used to evade responsibility, but also when the agent is unknown or unimportant.
They’re fairly common in scientific writing, e.g., “the beaker was heated until fumes appeared”, where It’s not really important which researcher (or lab assistant) did the heating.
But passives need not omit the agent. Indeed, the passive construction can be used to emphasize the agent by placing it at the end, as a punch.
“He was betrayed by his own daughter” rather than “His own daughter betrayed him.”
Passive voice is often the best choice in good writing, despite what some idiot ‘grammar checker’ programs and clueless ‘grammar mavens’ will tell you.
