What are the effects of passive voice other than changing emphasis? Is that useful?
As this excellent answer points out, the passive voice can change the emphasis of a sentence from the subject to an object. This other answer provides examples of how passive voice is used in academia to draw attention away from the author of a paper and towards the paper’s findings. In what ways passive voice is used to change the focus of sentences? What are the most important things in life?
What are your ideas for a global strategy?
Is this possible, an
- awkward construction will be unnecessary at times?
is better than
Glaciers, water, wind, centuries of foot traffic, and now the grading machine making its way down the center, wore the canyon smooth.
- Closely related to the change of emphasis, it is commonly used as a way of weaseling out of responsibility:
Honey, the kids got lost.
As opposed to
Honey I lost both the kids.
Why is everyone so upset about the new age of technology?
JeffSahol is right but it’s not only about ‘weaseling out of responsibility’. They already have. Which is the best way to omit information, which is obvious or of no importance but can be easily overlooked by a layperson?
The system is to be parameterized as follows.
Who is being used by the God? Well, it doesn’t matter what. What will have to be done. Why do we invent an actor (user, administrator)?
The report is automatically printed twice a day.
Does anybody out there know with certainty that the printing company works on a report?/Is it legitimate? Do I have to invent an actor (the printer, the system)?
If you look in the German instruction manual you will see that it overflows with the passive voice – exactly because you can save your feather/finger from producing unnecessary information. What’s saying is German, so I have begun translating it into English. What it is like to have actors just for the sake of wordprocessing – I’m a passive voice hater – and therefore, an English-speaking customer.
I’ve read a couple of times the opinion that passive voice is avoided because it’s more difficult to grasp. Seriously? Why are challenges considered as bad? Is even speaking of deducing people’s perception important to writers? What is your opinion?
