- Whether to mention a pregnancy in a job interview
- A possible meeting protocol
- What are an end-user's responsibilities?
- Another take on opening PCs, or not
- Getting some process going
- Selling a more open environment to management
- Running an effective meeting
- Licensing rules for virtual machines
- The ROI of metrics
- Legal challenges to virtual machines
December 22, 2006 | Comments: (0)
One more run at passive voice
Following my Keep the Joint Running column on good writing that recommended avoidance of passive voice ("Sounding smarter," 11/27/2006) and the followup in this space ("An active discussion about passive voice," 12/12/2006), several correspondents asked the question, "What exactly is passive voice, how do you recognize it, and how do you rewrite sentences to get rid of it?"
Good question.
Passive voice is a construction in which the verb happens to the subject, instead of the subject making the verb happen to the object. "Projects were planned," is passive voice, as planning happens to projects. "Project managers planned projects," is active voice: Now the subject of the sentence (Project managers) are causing the verb (planned) to happen to the object (projects).
Avoiding the passive voice is pretty simple. Just make sure the subject of the sentence is the actor, not the acted upon. The hard part is avoiding overuse of the word "I" when you do so. The secret is to shift perspective from yourself to what you're interested in.
For example, "I reviewed the performance of every employee in my department ..." is active voice, but the focus is on the writer. "With few exceptions the employees in my department performed very well ..." is also active voice, only this time the writer stays out of the picture.
Another example shows how to use the imperative to avoid passive voice:
"A happy holiday should be had," is grammatically correct, but very poor construction. The imperative - "Have a happy holiday," - is much better.
So stop reading this and go have one!
- Bob
Posted by Bob Lewis on December 22, 2006 09:22 AM
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A good writer will intentionally use passive voice occasionally. Active voice sounds stronger, but it also identifies the actor. When writing about errors or problems, one usually wants to avoid the "blame game," and get on with finding a solution Passive voice accomplishes this. Instead of saying, "Joe Smith screwed the pooch," it may be better to write, "The pooch got screwed." Then Joe Smith isn't on the defensive, looking to shift blame.
Posted by: Charlie at January 9, 2007 08:18 AM|
Three books. Three ways to change the world, your life, or at least Bob Lewis' bank account. Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World distills the world of IT leadership into eight learnable skills and gives you concrete, practical techniques for each one of them. Bare Bones Project Management: What you can't not do makes project management manageable, even for first-time project managers with no formal training in the discipline. ManagementSpeak: What managers say/What they mean … well, it won't help your career, and won't make you a better manager. Mostly, it will make you chuckle, guffaw, and maybe even chortle. Make friends - it's the perfect gift for anyone who has ever suffered through one of those meetings. Order your copies today! |
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