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27 October 2011
Passive voice: did they teach you it was bad and evil? Or polite and objective?
I tend to employ the passive voice too much, although when I write in English I try to edit it out. It's just that in my other languages, the passive voice is the proper way of being grammatically correct.
They didn't have to teach me. I had already discovered it for myself in 5th grade, although I didn't have a name for it until my 7th grade english teacher introduced it. "There is.../It is..." constructions are also passive voice in my style book.
IT's not bad and evil, just makes for dull and lifeless reading. I agree with Hugh, when editing my own or others' writing, the first thing I do on the first pass is revise every passively constructed sentence to active voice.
My English teacher actually made a diagram that plotted out the number of "to be" verbs used against the grade received. Of course, he did the grading.
(When I was typing that, I almost typed, "He was the one doing the grading" but he would not have approved.)
Has anyone else had to do any scientific writing? Because it seems to be considered proper form in scientific writing to some and just bad English to others and may have to do with trends. In some cases, like when focusing on the subject or object, it is recommended. I never got bad and evil training in high school, but my high school was a joke. I've never had a problem with it and am wondering if people are trained to view it in a certain way and how much of it is a stylistic choice.
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