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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 (about 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 (about 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