Bit #41 – Active Voice
You are probably faced with finishing at least one, if not multiple, writing assignments at various points in your career. Your time may be limited, so I wanted to give you a quick tip to help enhance your writing in the last stretch. What is this magic tip, you may ask? Using Active Voice!!! If you increase the use of active voice in your writing, your work will transform.
Active voice makes your meaning clear for your audience (which is crucial for successful writing) and keeps your sentences from becoming complicated or wordy. Good academic writing primarily uses passive voice ONLY in the methodology section and nowhere else. I know…that is easier said than done, but there are ways to improve our use of active voice in our writing.
In writing, we should use active voice as much as possible. When you edit your work, you should dedicate significant time to checking for passive verbs/voice and fixing the sentences, so they become active.
There are multiple ways to edit your work to increase the use of active voice. Practice is best because using active voice will become more automatic and more effortless as you go. The following videos will help you learn strategies for increasing active voice in your writing. (The first video is Kristin Sainani from Stanford….her videos have changed my life) 🙂.
Watch these videos and see how you can enhance your use of active voice in your writing.
