Avoid the Passive Voice

What's passive voice, and why should I avoid it?

Writers sometimes try to sound more authoritative by overusing the passive voice, a sentence structure that obscures or omits the person performing the action. A passive construction consists of the past participle of the verb, plus a form of the verb "to be." The passive voice increases wordiness by adding the "to be" verb; it also blunts the force of the main verb, often producing dull and confusing prose.

Examples of passive voice:

The letter was mailed. (Who mailed it?)

Mistakes were made. (The classic passive-voice maneuver, which neither courts of law nor readers should accept!)

Sometimes passive constructions include the agent (the person or thing performing the action), as in this sentence:

    The fly ball was caught by Kenny Lofton.