When writing a sentence, you need to make sure to stay in a consistent voice throughout.  While sudden shifts are acceptable, they can only be used if there’s good reason for it.

Just in case you need a refresher, the voice of a sentence is defined by its verb, which is either active or passive.  Staying consistent simply means that if you use an active verb  at the beginning of a sentence, then you only use active verbs until its end.

Take this sentence as an example: “He rescued a dog, took it home and put it up in the garage.”  Here, the sentence stays in an active voice throughout.  A variation that shifts will be: “He rescued a dog, took it home and had it sleep in the garage.”  As you can see, the sentence is perfectly acceptable, but there’s an awkwardness about it.  Plus, the shift isn’t necessary, as the other way of constructing the sentence works just fine.

More importantly, disciplining yourself to stick to one voice should help you avoid the unnecessary awkwardness that frequent shifts can create.  Some writers, for instance, completely ignore voice that they end up shifting from one to the other multiple times within the same sentence.   While the result often stays readable, they don’t make for the smoothest reading.

Using the passive voice is usually bad.  Conversely, employing the active voice is recommended for better writing.  Like all writing guidelines, though, there are exceptions to even the best practices.

There are quite a few cases where using the passive voice will not actually hurt your writing, even if your writing improvement checker does alert you to your use of them.  In fact, this particular grammatical construction will help you achieve your specific communication goals in these situations:

1. You want to facilitate a smoother connection between sentences.  Sometimes, using the active voice can break the flow of thought from the previous sentence (usually written in an active voice).   When you notice that it does, rewrite the sentence with a passive tone.
2. You want to emphasize the recipient of the action.  The passive voice allows you to put the focus on the receiver of the action, rather than the doer (a good practice when the receiver is more important than the actor).
3. You don’t want to place responsibility on anyone.  The active voice can sound indiscreet in some situations where discretion is valuable, such as when reporting the reasons why a project failed.   Employing the passive voice helps to soften the blow when pointing out blame.

Books upon books of writing advice and semester after semester of writing class have taught most of us one thing about the passive voice:  always replace them with the active form whenever possible.  It’s for good reason, too.

Passive voice is typically a feature of childish expression.  That’s because children tend to perceive of themselves as objects of action, rather than the subject.  As such, the age-old advice of applying the active form of verbs, rather than their passive versions.

Whenever we use the passive voice, we tend to feel like we’re doing something wrong.  While the active form does make sense most of the time, the passive form can be just as valid.  In fact, there’s no rule in the English language that says you have to use the passive form of verbs all the time.  Even your writing software, in fact, won’t fault you for it.

Truth is, the passive voice is just as valid a way of expressing your thoughts.  In some instances, in fact, it’s an even better pick than using the active form of verbs.

• Sentences that contain multiple active verbs usually require naming each of the agents of the verb.  That leads to convoluted text that reads very, very awkwardly.
• Some agents can be better emphasized when using the passive voice.
• Sentences that accuse someone indirectly are best written in passive form and is an essential technique in journalism.  There’s almost no way to be indirect with the active voice.

You’ve probably heard that verbs can always have two voices, the choice of which will depend on you as the writer.   If the subject of your sentence is the one performing the action, then your verbs will be active.  Should your subjects be the receiver of the action, the verbs will be passive.

When being specific is a concern in your writing, always choose to outfit your sentences in the active voice – details, in the English language, always reside in that form.  If you’re looking to be a bit shoddy, on the other hand (like when you don’t know the actual facts or are trying to hide information), the passive voice will let you write materials without making the ignorance conspicuous.

Extra Information

Active forms of verbs always force the writer to supply extra information that the passive voice doesn’t require.  Take these two sample sentences, for instance:

“Students are not allowed off the school grounds.”

“The principal has decided not to allow students off the school grounds.”

In the first one, the restriction is simply laid out with no clue as to who put it there.  The second one, on the other hand, lets us know that the principal put the new ruling in place.

Shorter Sentences

When you’re looking to provide the complete details yet use a passive-verb format, sentences typically end up longer (if you do it enough, a good grammar software will likely catch up and alert you to the fact).  To add the information on the principal in the first sentence, for instance, you’ll need to write:

“Students are not allowed off the school grounds, by virtue of a decision from the principal.”