Active voice

Active voice encourages brevity and engagement—two things we definitely want from our writing.

The active voice looks like this: Subject, Verb, Object. The subject of the sentence does the action. For example:

• Passive sentences bore people.

Reverse the sequence and you have the passive voice: Object, Verb, Subject. The subject has the action done to it. Like so:

• People are bored by passive sentences.

Words like “was” and “by” are often red flags signalling passive voice. You can also use this handy trick from Dr. Rebecca Johnson: If you insert “by zombies” after the verb and the sentence still makes sense, you’re using the passive voice.

Occasionally, the passive voice is acceptable, such as when you want to emphasize the action over the subject. For example:

• You have been logged out due to inactivity.

But as a general rule, use the active voice. It's just better.