The passive voice lets John off the hook for not turning in the paperwork it lets the reader figure out the culprit. PASSIVE The paperwork for this request was not turned in on time.ĪCTIVE John did not turn in the paperwork for this request on time. When we hear the effect before the cause, our brains struggle to flip the message around to cause/effect order, so that we can understand what happened. In this case, the active voice the puts the agent at the head of the sentence and answers the crucial question: Who did the action? It also satisfies a deep need of the human mind: the need to put cause before effect. Who cares about the road? We want to know that the chicken crossed it. Here, the active voice is the clear winner. PASSIVE Why was the road crossed by the chicken?ĪCTIVE Why did the chicken cross the road? Our training programs coax them to use the active voice more often.īut is the active voice always the best option? The answer is not always simple. They may have been told not to personalize their writing with pronouns like I and you. They may just be so in the habit of using the passive voice that using the active voice feels like diving off a cliff. They may feel the passive sounds more “professional”. People in large organizations gravitate toward the passive voice, with its penchant for blurred accountability, formality, and arms-length relationship. Basically, it's better! Except in specific cases when the passive voice is appropriate, the active voice will get your point across more clearly every time. It is more direct, more understandable, more authentic. In the passive voice, the object of the action becomes the subject of the sentence.In Worktalk business writing training programs, we extol the virtues of the active voice. In the active voice, the one who did the sentence’s action is the subject, or core noun, of the sentence.

Active voice