Because it’s more direct and easier to understand, the active voice is preferable to the passive voice.

With the active voice a subject (noun) acts (verb) on an object (noun). In the passive voice the object is acted on by the subject.

For example:

Active: Andy kicked the ball

Passive: The ball was kicked by Andy.

The active voice makes for tighter writing and easier reading. It is more personal and less formal. You’ll notice in the example that the passive version uses six words while the active phrase required only four and has simpler grammar. It’s both economical and clear.

Typically readers find phrases written in the active voice easier to understand as they involve fewer stages – or as someone once said “fewer mental hoops to jump through”. This becomes important in more complex sentences and longer pieces of text.

The active voice also reads as if the writer is more confident about the facts. In contrast, phrases and sentences written in the passive voice often appear to be tentative or uncertain. You’ll often find bureaucrats and corporate managers hiding behind the passive voice’s ambiguities.

For example, in the phrase; “the claims have been analysed”, it’s not clear who did the analysis. On the other hand; “We analysed the claims” is pretty clear.

Things get worse when the writer resorts to using the word ‘it’ rather than ‘I’ or ‘we’:

In the sentence “It was decided no claims would be payable” the author is deliberately hiding behind the ‘it’ implying that authority comes from on high rather than identifying the person who did the deciding.

There may be times when you need to use the passive voice. We’ll look at them in another post.

Earlier articles:

Better writing: Companies are singular

Better writing: And

Better writing: The inverted pyramid

Better writing: Keep it simple

Good writing is direct, clear and precise. It’s also unambiguous. As a writer your goal is to transmit your thoughts swiftly and accurately to the reader.

The best way to do this is by making sure there are as few barriers as possible between your message and your audience.

Forget what you learnt in school. It may be OK  to impress teachers and exam markers with your grasp of complex language and obscure long words: in the real world simple, straightforward language works best. This applies to all types of writing.

Remember, not all your readers are native English speakers. And not all them are highly educated. It’s unlikely even those who are will be impressed by your fancy words and cleverness.

• If you have something worth saying (or writing) always choose short words over long ones. Words with Anglo-Saxon roots are easier to understand than ones from a Latin origin. They are also easier to spell.
• Use the smallest number of words needed. Where possible keep sentences and paragraphs short. A paragraph should contain a single idea.
• Avoid jargon and foreign words.
• Try to write in the everyday speech of ordinary people, but don’t overdo the chattiness and avoid slang.
• Most of the time the active voice is better than the passive voice.
• Learn how to use punctuation.

I’ll be expanding on these ideas in future tips. But if you have a specific question please leave a comment.

About better writing:

This is my fourth tip to help you become a better writer. The others are listed below. You don’t have to follow them all. You don’t have to agree with any of them. Simply reading them will help you think about your writing and that’s the first step to improving matters.

If you need a writer to help communicate your message, please visit my website: billbennett.co.nz

Further reading:
Better writing: Rhythm
Better writing: Companies are singular
Better writing: The inverted pyramid
Better writing: And
Better writing: Go easy on the adjectives
Better writing: Capital letters

At school we were taught never to start sentences with “And”.

And yet newspaper journalists do it all the time. It’s one of the first so-called writing rules professional writers learn to break.

There’s nothing wrong with using “And” to begin a sentence or a paragraph. In fact, it can be a great way to smooth the flow of a series of short sentences that would otherwise appear too staccato for comfortable reading.

However, it works best if you only break this rule in moderation. Overusing “And” at the start of sentences quickly makes your text boring.

As Keith Waterhouse points out in the excellent Daily Mirror Style, if you write too many sentences starting with the word, your prose will read like the New English Bible.

I consciously limit my use of sentences beginning with “And”. As a rule of thumb I aim for only one “And” sentence start in a short piece. For longer stories, you can get away with using it a few times. But control any urge to sprinkle sentences starting with “And” through your copy.

Other conjunctions

The school rule didn’t just apply to “And”, starting sentences with other conjunctions was equally forbidden. As an aside, conjunctions are ‘joining’ words used to string phrases together – usually, but not always, to build more complex sentences.

There are plenty of alternative conjunctions to call on at the start of your sentences:

• “But” is a great way to start a sentence that disagrees with the previous one.
• “Yet” is a less-frequently used alternative.
• “Or” is a great word for helping text flow.
• Some people don’t like sentences to start with “However”. I would regard that as another rule worth breaking.
• “Although” is a possibility. In practice it can be better to shorten the word to “Though” at the start of a sentence.

More ideas

Michelle Pierce covered this subject rather well in Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break for Copyblogger.

Better writing

This is the second in a series of articles aimed at helping you to improve your writing. The material is based on my 30-plus years experience as an editor and journalist working on newspapers and magazines. If you could use my skills to help communicate your message, please visit my website: billbennett.co.nz

A company may be made up of many employees, but it is legally and grammatically a single entity. Always use singular verbs with companies, even when the company name sounds plural. The same applies to countries, political parties, governments and partnerships. All are singular.

There is a feeling in some circles that using they instead of it makes your writing more personal. Maybe. But being grammatically incorrect makes your writing and, more importantly, your meaning, unclear. Resist all temptation to treat companies as plurals.

Better writing

Good clear writing is readily understandable and unambiguous. Great writers ensure there are as few barriers as possible between their message and their audience. They help ideas flow smoothly.

I don’t claim to be a great writer, but I’ve made a decent living for the last 30 years from being a competent journalist. Along the way I’ve learnt a thing or two. Most of my writing is in what we in the trade call newspaper style.

Newspapers and magazines or publishing companies usually have their own style books which lay out a set of rules – mainly for the sake of consistency. They differ from paper to paper, town to town and country to country, yet many of the best ideas are common to most, if not all, style books.

This is the first of a series of my tips to help you become a better writer. You don’t have to follow them all. You don’t have to agree with any of them. But reading them will help you think about your writing and that will improve matters.

If you need a writer to help communicate your message, please contact me.

• The inverted pyramid
• Keeping it simple
• And can start a sentence
• Adjectives: use fewer
  
• Capital letters

There are many low distraction writing tools. I’ve used Q10 and Darkroom on my PC. Both are good. I’m told Mac users have something called Bean. I can’t comment, I’ve not had a Mac in five years. And there are web-based alternatives.

But what I’d like to see is Microsoft Word 2007 tweaked for distraction free writing. Like it not, Word is the industry standard. As a professional writer I’m usually expected to turn in copy as Word files. I’m often expected to use Word’s abysmal review and comparison features (don’t get me started).

My problem with Word is that it is massively overpowered for everyday writing. And massively overpowering to look at.

How can we fix it?

Get rid of those ribbon bars, the menu bar and the never-required left-right scroll bar. In fact get rid of almost everything. Default to the draft view with standard fonts and a handful of standard styles. Allow for all the Word keyboard commands. Can you see where I’m coming from here?

Whisper this, Microsoft’s Live Writer is almost what I’m after. At least it would be without the screen clutter. I’m writing this with Live Writer now and it’s functionally all I need.

See

Back-to-basics text processing: Where less can be more

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