RE: active voice v. passive voice

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Carnall, Jane [mailto:Jane -dot- Carnall -at- compaq -dot- com] sez:
[snip] 
> New: Two topologies are available in defining Cats: pedigree or moggy.
> Old: You can define two types of Cats: pedigree or moggy.
> 
> He said "Personal preference: I just don't think that saying 'You can'
> sounds good." I suggested that, post deadline, we discuss 
> whether active
> voice or passive voice was appropriate. My co-worker may be fairly
> representative of the audience for this manual in his 
> distaste for active
> voice, second person pronouns.

Well, "they" say you should always consider your audience...
before dashing their foolish and unreasonable expectations 
and getting on with the job.

Regardless, I'm not happy with your example. 
I might prefer the "New" version if your friend had said:
 "Two TYPologies...", in which case, his sentence would 
have been saying what needed to be said in the context of 
the parentage of domestic cats.
With TOPolgies in there, he seems to have attempted to 
hijack a term from another discipline (math) without 
understanding what it means.

Nevertheless, if the sense of his new version is otherwise 
accurate, then your old version is not conveying the same 
sense... active and passive considerations notwithstanding.

The types are already defined. You can assign cats to one 
or the other of two available types. Or, you can define a 
particular cat as belonging to one of the two available types.

But, getting back to the endless debate at hand, I favor 
(favour?... Jane's a Brit...) a healthy mix of active and passive. 
Too much of active voice begins to seem either dictatorial 
or perhaps condescending ("Boys and girls, you can do this, 
and you can do that. Now you try." [Said just a bit too 
brightly and perkily for anybody's good....... bah!]).

Too much passive voice has the effect of removing both 
responsibility and immediacy.  "Yeah, it would probably be 
nice if this were to happen before that, and it's faintly 
possible that the-other-thing could be allowed to occur, 
if only there were somebody who's actually supposed to *do* 
any of it... but there doesn't seem to be, so let's just 
wallow off into a passive funk and hope that breathing at 
least remembers to get itself done... perhaps..."

Anybody who goes about anally evicting ALL passive voice 
or ALL active voice from a document is being... well... 
anal.  Each has its place, and the trick is to use 
both to best effect. Current practice is a bit of a 
rebound or overreaction to decades of dry military-speak 
in technical documents.  If your prose is directing the 
reader to do something, then by all means tell her to 
DO it!      You may imply the "you" at your discretion.    :-)

In the portion of your doc that is merely explaining the 
background, and not exhorting some precise action, then 
go ahead and sprinkle some passive constructions. They 
aren't poisonous. They're actually less allergenic than 
cat hair.

Good night.

/k


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