Writing May Look Passive, But It Should Be Active

If you weren’t completely asleep in high school English, you may remember something about writing in the “active voice“.  Simply put, it means that it’s a lot more interesting to hear that “the cat ate the mouse” than “the mouse was eaten by the cat”.  If you’re documenting a scientific experiment on the consumption of rodents by felines (hopefully for a large government grant) you can go ahead and use #2.

Active voice writing is much tighter.  (Your writing would be tighter if you used active voice.)  Active voice is more personal.  And active voice can introduce action much earlier in your narrative.

I often see people lapsing into a passive voice when they’re trying to sound professorial or high-flautin’ to impress others.  Big words and hard to parse language may be common in academia, but if you’re writing to be understood you should use little friendly words that are easily understood.

Write like your life depends on it.

Write like you’d talk to a friend.

Write, then cut.  Then cut again.  When cutting more would ruin your point, stop.

Let me know if you don’t get it.  Because I’d like you to understand.