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View Poll Results: What are your thoughts about Passive Sentences? | |||
I never use them and I don't like to read them | 2 | 5.88% | |
I sometimes use them and I sometimes see the need for them | 18 | 52.94% | |
I will stay away from a book that uses passive sentences too often | 3 | 8.82% | |
It has never bothered me in reading and/or writing. | 14 | 41.18% | |
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 34. You may not vote on this poll |
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11-09-2010, 01:44 PM | #1 |
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The Passive Sentence
I heard someone say once that 'good writing' should include no more than 30 percent passive sentence structure.
While I understand the premise, I am wondeing if anyone has experienced (in writing and/or reading) the absolute need for passive sentences. After studying, editing and rewriting for countless hours, I sometimes find that the passive sentence is the best way to go (In some circumstances) Anyone have any thoughts on this? |
11-09-2010, 01:55 PM | #2 |
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Active or passive voice should be appropriate to the context. Except for professional or technical writing, which should be active.
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11-09-2010, 02:09 PM | #3 |
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11-09-2010, 02:15 PM | #4 |
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11-09-2010, 03:55 PM | #5 | |
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Quote:
Eg, it's better to say "the solution was agitated for 10 minutes" rather than "I agitated the solution for 10 minutes" because the only thing of importance is that the solution was, in fact, agitated, not that it's you who did the agitating. |
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11-09-2010, 04:03 PM | #6 | |
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A letter on the subject from the journal Nature
Quote:
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11-09-2010, 06:21 PM | #7 |
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The author of that letter is making a huge number of unsupported statements. Why should, for example, "I agitated the solution" lead to the writer having more of a claim on the results than "the solution was agitated"? It might or might not be true, but "because I think so" isn't a scientific reason. He's confusing correlation for causation -- there are more published cases of fabricated results, and more use of active voice, so active voice must be causing fabrication. Since I'm not aware of any proof that there is more fabrication of data going on -- it's entirely possible that it's merely being detected more often -- even that element of his correlation is questionable. Again, we have unsupported assertions. Then we have this: "The use of the passive voice encourages disciplined writing, cases must agree, tenses must be used correctly." By implication, active voice does not require discipline, cases need not agree, and tenses can, it appears, just be picked at random. I don't even know where to begin.
In short, the author of that letter is saying "passive voice is better because I said so." That's neither good science nor good writing. |
11-10-2010, 01:24 AM | #8 |
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I really prefer the active form when reporting some original material, whatever it might be: an approach to a problem, an experimental finding, a bit of theory, ....
I also make use of the the first person as subject. In this way I take responsibility and merit. The impersonal form, both in the active and passive, seems to imply that mistakes and imprecisions just happen, out of the author's control. |
11-11-2010, 03:01 AM | #9 |
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Active sentences are certainly easier to read. You can at least tell who is doing what to whom or what, or what to what or who.
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11-11-2010, 06:40 PM | #10 |
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Active & passive voices are tools. One uses them based on one's objectives. Active voice tends to clarify. Passive voice tends to obscure. Who ya gonna call?
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11-11-2010, 06:55 PM | #11 |
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Whether the sentence was active or passive was not given a damn.
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11-12-2010, 07:20 AM | #12 |
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As a linguist I read and wrote scientific papers about language for about thirty years : I never thought that some day I should read a whole discussion about the ethical merits of active and passive sentences... Rarely saw as silly a discussion...
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11-12-2010, 08:31 AM | #13 |
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11-12-2010, 06:56 PM | #14 |
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11-13-2010, 12:02 PM | #15 |
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The passive voice is preferable when the subject is unknown, unimportant, or imprecise.
The maxim, "Rome wasn't built in a day" is written in the passive voice for two reasons. One reason is that it is more succinct than the active voice (disproving the active voice zealots claim that the av is always more direct); in active voice it is "Romans didn't build Rome in a day." It is also redundant to mention the subject; we already assume that the Romans built Rome. It would only be necessary to use the subject if someone other than the Romans built Rome. The second reason is that to use the active voice would be to completely change the meaning of the maxim. By leaving out the subject, the maxim implies that any grand undertaking, such as the building of Rome, cannot be done in a short period of time. The subject is irrelevant. To use the active voice would specify that it was the subject (the Romans) that couldn't build Rome in a short period of time; perhaps they weren't smart enough or industrious enough, but someone else could have possibly built Rome in a day. By being general, the passive voice is timeless and universal. |
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author discussion, indie authors, kindle authors, sentence structure |
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