Consulting Journal: Writing

This article is reprinted from The Consulting Journal
http://www.consultingjournal.com

Writing: Passive voice

by David Blakey

Rather than avoid the passive voice, you can learn to use it as a powerful writing tool.

[Monday 24 December 2007]

I see that many firms are still insisting that reports to their clients should not contain sentences written in the passive voice.

Active voice is used in a sentence in which the subject does some action to the object: My sources told me that the manufacturer has postponed the announcement.

Passive voice is used in a sentence in which the subject has some action done by the object: I was told by my sources that the announcement has been postponed by the manufacturer.

I shall write about some different forms of these sentences that convey the same message quite differently.

Emphasis

My sources told me that the manufacturer has postponed the announcement.

This is the version encouraged by the rule that tells writers to avoid the passive voice. It has a number of problems.

First, there is an emphasis on my sources, because those words start the sentence. The first few words of a sentence will usually suggest the most important person or thing in that sentence. So a passive voice example would be better, as I appears first.

In the same way, the manufacturer is emphasized, rather than the announcement. So a passive voice example would be better here, too.

Object

In the active voice, there is often a need to include both the subject and object. This is because the object is more important than the subject.

In the passive voice, the object can often be removed.

I was told that the announcement has been postponed.

This gets the message across quickly and clearly. It does not matter that the sentence is in the passive voice.

This may have been the sentence that was written originally. The first draft of any sentence should always be written in the way that the writer would say it. In order to get to the totally active voice version of the sentence, it would have to be altered so that it no longer resembled normal speech. Sometimes, sentence that are written entirely in the active voice are difficult to say.

Try saying these two sentences out loud:

I was told that the announcement has been postponed.
My sources told me that the manufacturer has postponed the announcement.

Journalese

Avoid any temptation to remove verbs from a sentence as a way of removing passive verbs, as in

According to my sources, the announcement has been postponed.

Avoid going all the way down that route into writing like a journalist.

The announcement has been postponed, according to my sources.

Journalists write like that so that can make a definitive statement and then protect themselves against legal action. So the announcement has been postponed sounds bold, but it is diluted by according to my sources, which reduces much of boldness. Consultants should not adopt this style.

Intentional passive voice

You can intentionally use the passive voice to stress the emphasis in a sentence.

Consultants must have an obligation to express themselves clearly and concisely.

This is the way that we might write. It flows and is in the active voice. Consultants must commit to the obligation.

An obligation that consultants must have is to express themselves clearly and concisely.

This is more unnatural, but it does place the emphasis where it should be. The obligation exists and consultants must commit to it.

In this example, I have taken a simple sentence in active voice and deliberately changed it to passive voice in order to make a point.

Consider these points.

The sentence implies that there are several obligations that a consultant must have. This could be emphasized more, if we choose, by replacing the opening An with One. It is interesting that this idea of several obligations has emerged just because I altered the order of the sentence, without adding anything.
The sentence has a clause that consultants must have that can be removed to state An obligation is to express themselves clearly and concisely. The obligation to write clearly and concisely exists in its own right. Consultants must have it. It is not something that consultants need to invent and then commit to.

Conclusion

Rather than being a style that you should avoid, the passive voice should be a style that you understand and that you can employ to strengthen your writing.