The great thing about being a grammar expert is you don’t have to know anything about grammar to be one. Just launch a blog, say whatever you think is true and bask in the certainty that no one will ...

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 ...

One "rule" that many self-appointed experts on writing return to again and again is: "Don't use the passive!" Or, as some puckishly put it, "The passive voice should be avoided." The passive voice is ...

William Germano finds it ironic that academics warn their students off the passive voice while peppering their own writing with that construction (“Passive Is Spoken Here,” The Chronicle Review, April ...