Active Voice

What is active voice?

According to Dictionary.com:

When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence “Kevin hit the ball.” Kevin (the subject of the sentence) acts in relation to the ball.

We can simplify this by stating: the subject is doing something in the present tense. To apply this to more relevant terms and borrow a scenario from the Requirements Editor and Content User Guide, we can state:

Because this is a shared ContentReference, you must decide if you want to take the referenced content changes or break the connection and keep your changes.

Active vs. passive voice

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.

Example 1:

Active: Researchers earlier showed that high stress can cause heart attacks.
Passive: It was earlier demonstrated that heart attacks can be caused by high stress.

Example 2:

Active: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Passive: The road was crossed by the chicken?

How to identify passive

Look for a "by" phrase (e.g., "by the chicken" in the last example above). If you find one, the sentence may be in the passive voice. Rewrite the sentence so that the subject buried in the "by" clause is closer to the beginning of the sentence.

Is it OK to use passive voice?

There are some limited instances in which passive voice is acceptable and perhaps even encouraged. Still, passive voice should be used sparingly because it can be confusing and more challenging to read.

To avoid wordy or awkward construction.
When the action and not the doer is the focus of the sentence.
When the subject is unknown.
To minimize emphasis on fault or responsibility, such as to avoid making users feel responsible for something that is not their fault. This is especially true in regard to error messages.