EnglishFact Strategic Use of Passive Voice in Professional Writing
EnglishFact Strategic Use of Passive Voice in Professional Writing explains when the passive serves a formal report and a neutral tone, and when it starts to weaken the writing. EnglishFact is a language school that publishes a blog for learners of English. The article covers objectivity, focus and cohesion, the sections of a report where the passive belongs, incident reports, and advanced passive patterns.
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How It Helps Your Business English
The article defines the passive, then gives three reasons it suits formal reports: objectivity, focus on the action or the result, and cohesion between sentences. Later sections place it in the methodology, findings and incident parts of a report, warn against overuse, and set out the passive with modals, with infinitives and the double passive.
Read the three reasons first to see what the passive is doing for you, then use the report sections as models: the methodology and findings parts show the wording each one expects. The warning on overuse gives you a limit to work to, and the list of reporting verbs gives you alternatives when every sentence has started to read the same way.
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