In marketing and communications, we aim to use the written word for maximum impact. We choose words carefully to gain the attention of our target markets and create positive outcomes for our clients in sales and public awareness. So far so good – that’s nothing new.

Now we enter the online environment and there are many more things to consider. For instance, words and key phrases are used for SEO strategies. Also, as we described in an article in Little Red Booster last year (“English for the Web”), we also have to keep things fairly direct and simple when writing for the multilingual worldwide web audience.

In that article we briefly touched on the use of the active or passive voice in writing and it’s worth taking a second look at this. Today’s received wisdom is that modern writers (especially bloggers) should mainly use the active voice. In other words, it is preferable to say “Jane drove the car” than “the car was driven by Jane”.

The active voice puts the emphasis on the subject or doer rather than the object of the action. It’s direct and assertive, whereas the passive voice can often fudge the issue and muddy the waters. For instance, the passive statement “A lot of mistakes were made in running the project” takes the heat off whoever was in charge. On the other hand, if you need to be diplomatic and let people down gently, then the passive voice is just the thing.

Additionally, sometimes the emphasis needs to be on the object of the sentence, because it is the important element in what has taken place. For instance “Jane was hit by the car” is the logical way to describe Jane’s status as the victim of an accident. Although it perpetrated the action, the car is not the important aspect of the incident. For most people, the injuries to Jane would be more important than damage to the BMW.

A lot of people, including professional writers, don’t think about this grammatical distinction when writing an article, letter, email or tweet. Being obsessed with grammar can stifle creativity and it is important not to lose style and feel.

Readability is essential, and using active and passive wisely is like creating right proportions of light and shade in a graphic image. Nevertheless, it’s preferable to have a bias towards the active to be direct and straightforward and this generally portrays the writer as more honest and open. Listen to a lot of experienced politicians being interviewed and you can see how the passive voice can be used to fudge the issue and leave you very frustrated.