Writing Better English Tips – Avoid the Passive Voice
This is what any writing course worth its salt should start with. There can never be enough said about the way your writing transforms when you use the active voice as much as possible. The idea of a contemporary style of writing starts with the notion o avoiding the passive voice. If you had to change your writing overnight or had only enough time for one lesson then let drill this lesson into your head.
Make a Forceful Point
Writing is all about communicating your thoughts. If you aren’t saying something you want to say then you aren’t writing, you are merely reporting. If you want to communicate an original idea, your argument becomes stronger when you use the active voice. Take the following sentence as an example:
Passive voice: A mistake that was committed by somebody in this room resulted in a loss in revenue.
Now compare it to this sentence:
Active voice: Somebody in this room made a mistake and resulted in a loss in revenue.
The first sentence is an indirect way of saying it. You are not acknowledging the importance of the sentiment. In the second version of the sentence, you acknowledge the seriousness of the issue and take ownership. You are being direct and forceful. There is no two ways about it. There is no confusing the thought and there is no way that 10 different people are ever going to get more than one meaning from the sentence.
Cut Out Unnecessary Words
The second obvious point in the two sentences is that the second one is comparatively shorter. The first sentence has 16 words compared to the second one with 14. Now while two words might not seem like much, if you consider two words per sentence, think about how many words that works out to when you are writing a 10 page report. A big reason why reports, articles, proposals and essays seem longer than they have to be is because inevitably they are written in the passive voice. Using the active voice as much as possible makes your writing shorter and tighter.
Know When to Use the Passive Voice
No one is saying that the passive voice is bad. Don’t try to remove it completely from your writing. What you must remember though is that there are rules as to when you should use the active and when you should use the passive. Just remember this: Never forget the point of the sentence. What you are writing about, in that sentence, should always appear in the first half of the sentence. The subject of the sentence should not appear towards the end. Construct the sentence as you will and then ask yourself, what the sentence is supposed to be about. Only if you are absolutely sure that it needs a passive voice construction should you write it that way.
