The decision was made to enact only a 3 percent raise for the next fiscal year.Īlthough the purpose of such sentences may be to hide the identity of the people who performed these actions, we aren’t really fooling our readers.Another candidate was chosen for the position.Consider these passive-voice sentences, for example: It is much more diplomatic to say “The copier has been broken” than it is to say “Frieda broke the copier.” Passive verbs and passive sentences can be a liability.Įven though the passive voice can help us avoid pointing a finger at the person (or people or company or agency) responsible for unpleasant actions, that notion itself can become a writing pitfall.
Imagine, for example, that someone in your workplace broke the brand new copier by using the wrong kind of paper. Sometimes, in fact, the passive voice can be quite handy. That is, the passive voice is not, per se, ungrammatical despite what your word processing software might lead you to believe. Good writers recognize that the use of the passive voice is not an error.
Active voice: Our agency would hire a second staff person and establish an office.Passive voice: A second staff person would also be hired, and an office would be established.Active voice: We greatly appreciate your assistance with this matter.Passive voice: Your assistance with this matter is greatly appreciated.The subject officers, the ones who did the keeping, is a separate entity from the direct object parade, the recipient of the action verb kept. The same sentence, then, written in the active voice instead of the passive voice, would look like this: “Public safety officers kept the parade orderly.” In a sentence written in the active voice, the subject is the person or thing performing the action expressed by the verb, and the direct object is the person or thing receiving the action expressed by that verb. Parade is both the subject of the clause and also the recipient of the action-the direct object.
When we ask ourselves, “What was being kept?” the answer is parade. But what makes the sentence passive is that parade is also the direct object. In the first sentence, was kept is the action verb.
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