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Subject:Re: active vs. passive From:Usha Manoj <usha -dot- manoj07 -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Karin Matchett <wordcraft -at- karinmatchett -dot- com> Date:Mon, 7 Aug 2017 12:05:04 +0530
Dear All,
With regards to active and passive, I have a query and may be you can throw
some light on it.
I have usually encountered this problem when I drafted RFP or RFI.
Technical writing emphasizes on using active voice. However, in case of
proposals, where you talk about performing a particular action in case you
win the deal, the text is usually in future tense, for example, Company X
will be responsible to meet the SLA targets. How best can we avoid using
"will be" in the sentence. I have tried replacing it with "is" or "are"
depending on the context, but doesn't work in all cases. Please advise.
Regards
Usha
> I agree. In addition to needing a form of "to be," it needs an explicit
> subject.
> The question of active vs. passive doesn't even apply to this sentence
> because it's a command, which only has an implied subject of "you." My
> sense of why the question of passive voice is coming up is that there
> are different ways to phrase this sentence that are differently
> direct/indirect/confusing/obtuse/imprecise. These have a similar feel
> to active/passive, but they're not the same thing -- there's no
> overlap.
> Karin
>
> On 8/4/2017 7:23 PM, Robert Lauriston wrote:
>
> Since the subject specifically refers to active vs. passive, I'll
> repeat what I said in that long thread, only correctly (it has been a
> long and busy day):
>
> A phrase in passive voice has to have a form of the verb "be" and a
> past participle. There's more to it, but without those, it's not
> passive voice.
>
> Garner's "Modern American Usage" has good explanations for things like
> that.
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