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Current tech writing theory in the USA is that second person active
voice is good, whereas overuse of the passive is bad. (There are times
when you should use the passive, just don't overdo it.)
However, overuse of the passive seems to be more acceptable in the U.K.
Passive use also seems to be preferable in scientific and academic
writing.
Cheers,
Sean
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Sherman [mailto:bsherm -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:54 PM
To: Brierley, Sean
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: OT: Re: "Appears" vs. "will appear"
On this it appears we disagree....
No... nothing magical there. :-)
I didn't mean to hijack the thread, it has just come up recently in my
work. I'm not looking to convince anyone else, just looking to be
convinced. I remember early on (I came from technical side, not
writing) my writing was rife with passive voice and obsessive avoidance
of "you" (you=bad in high school writing, right?). It took someone very
little time to explain why this was bad. One example:
"The password must be changed every 30 days." Great! Who does it.
"You must change your password every 30 days." Ahhh... now I get it.
On 5/3/07, Brierley, Sean <Sean -dot- Brierley -at- ipc -dot- com> wrote:
> Use appears in other sentences and perhaps you will have the desire to
> append, "as if by magic" or "out of nowhere."
>
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