For many writers, feedback that your copy is "too passive" can be frustrating. The passive voice is, after all, grammatically correct. But there's a reason that public relations and communications ...

Writing in the active voice makes the meaning clear while keeping sentences from becoming complicated and wordy. Sentences using passive voice are not necessarily wrong, just less effective than ...

People who give advice on copywriting often say, “Avoid using the passive voice.” This universal statement is not always correct but, more importantly, it is often confusing because most of us use ...

Does the passive voice lend itself to biased, manipulative writing? A reader named Richard wanted to know after witnessing a discussion about a news article. “Someone criticized an article on politics ...

If you’ve ever had any writing training, either at school or on the job, you’ve probably been warned off the passive voice. Your high school English teacher, all the business writing books, and scores ...

This handout is also available for download in PDF format. We refer to a sentence as being in the "active voice" when the subject is performing the action of the sentence (the verb). A sentence is in ...