Re: Is passive voice ever OK?

["Westra, Kayla L." <13718westr -at- KCPBLDG01 -dot- BV -dot- COM>]

I'm glad I read Margaret's reply before I wrote the same thing!  This is
nearly identical to my rules for "when it's okay to use passive."

Thanks, Margaret.

Kayla
 ----------
From: TECHWR-L
To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
Subject: Is passive voice ever OK?
Date: Tuesday, November 29, 1994 4:13PM

Darcy Harding writes:
*****************
Can you use passive voice when your audience expects it? [snip]
If you were writing for the chemistry community, would you fight the active
voice battle, or WHAT? [snip]

*******************

In at least three situations, passive voice is BETTER:

1. Unimportant actor. (Often so in scientific writing. For example, nobody
may
care *who* did all the mixing & harvesting; what's important
is the sequence of events. Bringing in the actor (who, like as not, is a
nameless technician, not the author) can be a distraction, or worse, a
distortion.

2. Unknown actor. ("The car was stolen last night"; "the relics were buried
for
2000 years.") In scientific writing, things often *happen*, and scientists
come
up with *possible* actors or explanations. Hedging is often necessary; the
editor must clarify  what is a bona fide hegde and what is the author's need
to
appear "professional." (If I had a dollar for every author who told me
passive
was more "professional"....)

3. Embarrassed actor. "your account was accidentally debited $10,000 instead
of
$10." 'The samples were dropped on the floor and the data had to be thrown
out.'

In instructions and procedures, passive voice can really muck up the works.
In
Scientific writing, however, passive has a larger place.  (Not in every
sentence; the editor's job is to figure out when to switch to active voice
and
when to leave things passive.)

Good luck!

Margaret
Margaret_knox -at- aplmail -dot- jhuapl -dot- edu