Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Should I completely eliminate passive voice

The use of active or passive voice is dictated by where your focus is: on the subject or object of the actiin. Who is your sentence/paragraph/chapter about? John or Bob? If it is about John and w...

posted 9y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:23:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/17882
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:23:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
# The use of active or passive voice is dictated by where your _focus_ is: on the subject or object of the actiin.

Who is your sentence/paragraph/chapter about? John or Bob?

If it is about John and what he does, use the active voice:

> John killed Bob.

If it is about Bob and what he experiences, use the passive voice:

> Bob had been killed by John.

&nbsp;

* * *

Should you build a car without a reverse gear just because driving backwards from New York to Baltimore would get you arrested or killed?

The abuse of passive voice by mediocre writers does not make it useless.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-06-25T05:54:51Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 3