Passive Voice vs. Active Voice

Subject: Passive Voice vs. Active Voice
From: Bill Bledsoe <bill -at- ENVISION -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 13:25:43 -0600

Gang,

Thought I'd chime in on this with some feedback that one of my Journalism professors gave to me on a particular assignment back in school:

"Communications consumers (The audience) do not have the time nor the desire to find a message. Keep writing in the passive voice, and your message will get lost, and you will lose your audience. Go back and do the assignment over. JQ <his initials>"

Pretty harsh words, but ones I live by now.

If something I author has passive voice in it, or if I am editing a document with passive voice in it, I immediately assume one of the following:

* the author wants to hide their messages
* the author was to lazy to think about what they were producing to re-weave a more "active" piece of text
* the author wasn't given the time to write the document

I'm kinda of harsh on passive voice... just like ol' JQ was.

only my $.02 worth...
*************************************************
Bill Bledsoe
Envision Advanced Technologies Group
St. Louis, MO
bill -at- envision -dot- com or intlidox -at- anet-stl -dot- com

"The Internet is the first thing that
humanity has built that humanity doesn't
understand," Eric Schmidt, CTO Sun 10/18/96
*************************************************

PS: This is not meant to fill my mail box with justifications and personal attacks against my writing style. So please think before you hit the send button. bb


Previous by Author: St. Louis STC is on the Web!
Next by Author: Re: Software Test Plan for ISO 9000 Client
Previous by Thread: Re: Passive Voice? in Scientific Writing: Explanation
Next by Thread: Requests for CBT Pricing Info


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads