Passive aggression
Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Melanie in Writing
Writing is hard work.
What, you didn’t think so? Well, okay, it’s not exactly digging ditches. But it’s still work.
I say this because I know that plenty of folks think it’s easy. You sit down in front of a blank Word file, inspiration magically strikes, and the next thing you know, you’ve written a masterpiece. Right?
That’s a myth. Whether you’re writing a novel, copy for your website, or a technical manual, text rarely writes itself. All the humans I know who write well, whether for money or for fun, work hard.
Many, many excellent books have been written about how to improve your writing. I’ve read just a few of them. Nevertheless, I figured I’d share some principles I’ve returned to time and again over the past 10 years.
The passive voice should not be used
(Get it?)
The passive voice sucks all the life right out of your writing. This is especially true of marketing copy and narrative writing, such as novels and nonfiction works. I’ve found that technical and academic audiences are more accepting of the passive voice — but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
What is the passive voice, you ask? The subhead above is one example. Here’s another:
The paper was written by Marjorie.
Compare it to the preferred, active voice:
Marjorie wrote the paper.
See how much simpler that is? It’s more concise, it’s easier to understand, and it places the emphasis on the person doing the action — which is usually where it should be.
Is it ever okay to be passive?
Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing technically incorrect about using the passive voice. It’s just overused. But there are some situations where you may actually want to use it.
Passive voice is okay if you want to emphasize the object of the action. For example, when I want to refer to an action taken by a computer system, sometimes I’ll use passive:
If you activate this feature, both spam blacklists will be used.
In this case, if I said “the computer,” “the system,” or “the program” would consult two blacklists, the point — that there are two blacklists involved — would be less clear.
But as a general rule, I try to use the active voice as much as possible.
How about you?
Diane Sager
08. Feb, 2010
I love talking about this–unfortunately few people enjoy talking about it with me. LoL. I used to teach labs for introduction to news writing and reporting at MSU. We lab instructors would spend weeks trying to teach our students about writing with an active voice. It comes down to skills and mindset. If you have the skills to recognize passive writing, then you can avoid it and/or find it and fix it. Nice post!
Melanie
08. Feb, 2010
That’s such a good point. My editor at my first job was always on my case. I think that really helped me recognize it.
marta
09. Feb, 2010
I teach grammar to ESL students. My favorite example of the passive is, “Mistakes were made.” Then I ask my students to tell me who made the mistakes. They look at me like I’m weird, but then they get the idea.
I’ve been reading a ton of interviews and advice online this evening, I was beginning to feel despair at ever writing anything worth even the paper of one tree branch. At least I understand the passive voice. It should not be used!
Keep writing.
Jeff Timpanaro
09. Feb, 2010
Thanks, Mel! This article was understood by me greatly.
(Now if only we could get people to axe some adverbs!)