Communicating with Precision
This is a nice guide for improving or "tightening up" your writing, ensuring clarity, concision, and directness, as described in the article. This is useful for any information exchange writing. Over the next week, note how often you use passive voice, are too wordy, or use cliché expressions or qualifiers.
Precise Wording
6. Prefer the active voice.
The active voice emphasizes the person/thing doing the action in a sentence. For example, The outfielder throws the ball. The subject, "outfielder" actively performs the action of the verb "throw". The passive voice emphasizes the recipient of the action. In other words, something is being done to something by somebody: The ball was thrown (by the outfielder). Passive constructions are generally wordier and often leave out the person/thing doing the action.
| Active | Passive |
| S →V →O | S ←V ←O |
| Subject → actively does the action of the verb → to the object of the sentence | Subject ← passively receives the action of the verb ← from the object |
| Subject → acts → on object | Subject ← is acted upon ← by the object |
While the passive voice has a place - particularly if you want to emphasize the receiver of an action as the subject of the sentence, or the action itself, or you want to avoid using first person - its overuse results in writing that is wordy, vague, and stuffy. When possible, use the active voice to convey who or what performs the action of the verb.
Precise writing encapsulates many of the 7 C's; it is clear, concise, concrete, and correct. But it is also accurate and active. To write precisely and apply the 7 C's, it is important to look critically at your sentences, perhaps in a way you may not have done before. You need to consider the design of those sentences, from the words to the phrases to the clauses, to ensure that you are communicating your message effectively.