You probably learned it in one of your earliest writing classes: Active voice means the grammatical subject is doing the acting, and passive voice means the subject is acted upon. It is the difference ...

Whether you write on a part- or full-time basis, you can benefit from becoming more familiar with an often-overlooked aspect of writing that is treated in today’s column: active and passive voice ...

This tip on improving your SAT score was provided by Vivian Kerr at Veritas Prep. What does it mean when we say sentences on the SAT should be “active”? A sentence is “active” when the subject of the ...

Even when you think you’ve got a handle on grammar, you might not realize how easy it is easy to unwittingly venture into lexical territory that would rile your freshman year English teacher.

Upon reading "Teaching Writing to Undergrads," I was a bit dismayed by John T. Ikeda Franklin's statement on use of the passive versus active voice when writing science reports (C&EN, Oct. 30, 2006, ...

The passive voice focuses more on an action that took place and places less importance on the person who performed the action. Writers who use passive voice may cause headaches and frustration among ...

In most writing, active voice is preferred. In active voice, the subject performs the action. Ex: The cow jumped over the moon. In passive voice, the subject is passive; it performs no action. The ...

If your resume is full of phrases like "was responsible for ...", then you're using the passive voice. A lot of people make this mistake. If you want a stronger resume, you need to replace the passive ...

"We applied an external magnetic field of 4 T while increasing the pressure to 300 kPa." or "An external magnetic field of 4 T was applied as the pressure was increased to 300 kPa." Which is the ...

Does the passive voice lend itself to biased, manipulative writing? A reader named Richard wanted to know after witnessing a discussion about a news article. “Someone criticized an article on politics ...

Of all the technical advice I offer writers, none is more controversial than encouragement to use the passive voice. Most writers prefer the active, and so do I. But that preference has been distorted ...