Technical Writing Issue’s.

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Hi, this is part of the Wednesday weekly series on Technical Writing Issue’s.

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Hi Buddy,

I hope you are holding on great and having a good time. For the upcoming weeks, I want us to go through some tips to improve our technical writing game.

In today’s issues, we are going to look at active vs passive voice in technical writing. Much of the chit chat let us now get right into it.

1. Active voice vs passive voice.

When it comes to technical writing, it is a better practice to write in an active voice. Why is it encouraged and why do many people encourage this?

An active voice sentence always takes the structure shown below.

Active voice = subject + verb + object.

Active voice in a sentence would be.

The engineer wrote the program.

Take a look at our sentence structure. We have the subject (the engineer) + the verb (wrote) + the object in which the action acted upon (program).

So, the passive voice takes the structure shown down below.

Passive voice = Object + passive verb + Subject.

Converting our sentence above from active voice to passive would take the format.

The program was written by the engineer.

From this, you can notice that the passive voice is a complete reversal of the active voice. Now take some time and comprehend the two sentences. Which one did you find easier to read and comprehend?

I am sure the active voice was much easier to read and comprehend.

Why you should prefer active voice to passive voice.

• Readability — Unlike passive voice, active voice reports actions directly which makes it easier for the user to comprehend.
• Active voice is shorter than passive voice.
• Connection — most readers have to mentally convert passive voice to active voice which may be exhaustive. Leverage this and allow your readers to better understand you.
• Engagement — Active voice focuses on the actions which enable the reader to get into your story and improves engagement with the reader.

Conclusion.

Thank you for taking your time and reading through this week’s issue. I wish you a nice time ahead and keep an eye on next week’s issue.

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