Passive Voice Is the Evil in Technical Writing
Why the passive voice exists, and why you, as a technical writer, must avoid it
The double negation does not affirm: it confuses. The same applies to the passive voice, which doesn’t carry the same meaning as the corresponding active voice.
Nevertheless, (bad) technical communication is full of passive voices: why?
Let’s dive deep into the dark journey of the passive voice.
Grammar side
Following Grammarly:
Active and passive are the two grammatical voices in English. Neither is inherently better than the other, but each is suited to certain types of writing.
So, yes: the passive voice is not evil per se. There are contexts where the passive voice is convenient. Again, quoting Grammarly:
When you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting
If you are a technical writer, the alarm bells ring in this part of the definition:
[…] the doer of the action is irrelevant
Let us turn to the implications that this characteristic of the passive voice has in communication and, in particular, in technical communication.
Technical writing side
What’s technical writing? You can find many definitions on the internet, starting from Wikipedia. They all focus on the clarity of this communication about specialized topics.
I like to define technical writing as linking the dots. That’s clarity. A product based on a technical solution is a network of local solutions and concepts that solve a relevant problem for its users.
On the other hand, from the users’ perspective, a solution is a list of steps they go through to get things done. That means that technical writing must always say who or what does what. Otherwise, how could a piece of documentation instruct users?
That’s obvious, but it takes work to do consistently. I recognize it.
Think of a piece of writing like this: “When the API MyAPI is called, system A is triggered to send the message M.” Well: what is calling MyAPI, and why? And system A: is it triggered by what? By the MyAPI call? Perhaps.
Think of documentation that adopts such a passive voice style: the connection cause-effect is lost, and the audience must make a double effort to understand and supplement with the interpretation of what the text does not say.
That’s the crucial point: passive voice allows one to omit relevant information under the appearance of well-crafted writing. It’s a matter of mindset: focusing only on the action rather than the actor of the action gets the broad picture lost.
Conclusions
Nonwriter professionals may deem the topic of active voice versus passive voice an academic detail. And that’s a mistake because it reveals a poor awareness of the decision making mechanisms, which root in clarity about what does what.
[…] the doer of the action is irrelevant
When writers and speakers don’t explicitly state what does what, they prepare the ground for misunderstandings and fail in their mission as communicators.
Grammar is a treasure chest of wisdom, and we must pay attention to it because it is the structure of language. And language is the instrument of thought. And thought is the condition for deciding beyond animal instinct.
That’s why active versus passive voice matters.
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