RE: Active voice / passive voice studies

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au>]

Janice wrote:
> Nancy Riccio <ptcs -at- plateautechcomm -dot- com> wrote:
> 
> > OK, we all know that it's better to use active voice whenever possible.
> 
> Actually, that's not entirely true. *Most* of the time, 
> especially when providing instructions, active voice is 
> better than passive voice. However, passive voice is fine 
> in situations where the actor is unknown ("The file was 
> corrupted") or if the actor would be redundant or is obvious 


Danger, danger, danger!  Obvious to whom?  
There's the rub.

The trap that so many novice writers fall 
into is to assume that what is obvious to 
them is obvious to everyone.

There's not likely to be a problem with
comprehension in the case of "the results
are displayed" -- but it is a slippery slope
and soon you're into "the data is entered"
territory where things get very murky very
quickly.

My advice is to save yourself the time it takes
to go around asking people what is and what
obvious to them. Don't risk it.

--
Mike West
Melbourne, Australia


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