I have just finished reading a set of essays by L2 writers.  Here are real examples of the kinds of issues I have seen with passive constructions.  I don't believe these are best characterized as problems with the passive.

1) (L1 Korean) Previous sentence was about how politicians use deceptive practices to get elected.

As a result, people will disgust politics and politicians and it may cause people not to pay attention to politics.

My comment: The obvious correction is to insert passive morphology
 . . .  will be disgusted with . . . 

However, I don't think that explains why this writer produced this construction. The writer has assigned the experiencer of the emotion disgust to the subject position and not the object position. 

In other words the correction is not about passive voice but with how the writer understands the nature of the verb disgust.

2) (L1 Hindhi?)  Previous sentence was about the advertising for a shampoo.
People started using that shampoo but after two to three months they started complaining that their hair are falling off and the quality of their hair is also decreased.

Focus on the passive construction "is decreased".  As Herb noted, there are set of verbs that can "move" the object to subject position without passive morphology.  decrease is such a verb.  If the L2 learner is not aware this, given (1) passive morphology is necessary for 2.

1) Using this shampoo decreased the quality of the hair.
2) The quality of the hair was decreased (by using the shampoo).

In both examples, the apparent passive voice error was not in the passive voice but with the learner's knowledge of the particular verb.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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