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 ...

Microsoft Word 2010 can help punch up your document's prose by alerting you when you use passive voice in a sentence. If you write "the goal was achieved" instead of the more active "we achieved the ...

The passive voice focuses more on an action that took place and places less importance on the person who performed the action. Writers who use passive voice may cause headaches and frustration among ...

The passive voice: despised by teachers, maligned by editors, and misunderstood by almost everyone. For over a century, this grammatical construction has been the bogeyman of English writing, blamed ...

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Leave it to a scientist to finally explain how to kill off bad writing. In his new ...

I blogged a short while ago about some people’s tendency to mislabel usages they dislike as “passive voice.” But even phrases that really are in the passive voice are often better than their ...

You’re probably familiar with the weaselly way politicians tend to apologize when they’ve been caught red-handed. The most famous example is the use of the line, mistakes were made. Use of the passive ...