Most business writing employs active sentences to improve readability. One way to immediately improve your writing is to use active rather than passive voice in most sentences.

Active voice and passive voice contain the following grammatical patterns:
Active voice: Doer as Subject + Verb + Object
Passive voice: Object as Subject + Be Verb + Verb + Doer (Optional)

Using active voice in writing includes many benefits. The doer–action–object pattern allows for faster processing because most people's natural thinking occurs in this way. It also emphasizes the business orientation of action. Perhaps most important, it specifies the doer. Since business activities depend on accountability and coordination, knowing the identity of the doer of an action is usually important. In most cases, active voice also makes your sentences more concise.

Generally, active sentences are most effective in business writing. Passive sentences, however, are more effective when you want to avoid blaming or sounding bossy. Identify whether below sentences are in active or passive form. You will also evaluate whether active or passive form is most appropriate for each sentence.

a. We provide
b. Option to change
c. Contract is provided
d. Forms that are completed
e. Avoid careless errors
f. Financing reps will work
g. Reps determined
h. You are provided
i. You can manage
j. Your application

In this excerpt from "a modest proposal" by jonathan swift, which important issue does the writer deal with using a satirical tone? some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed; and i have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken, to ease the nation of so grievous an incumbrance. but i am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known, that they are every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. and as to the young labourers, they are now in almost as hopeful a condition. they cannot get work, and consequently pine away from want of nourishment, to a degree, that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour, they have not strength to perform it, and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come. a. old, sickly people cannot be hired as laborers because they don't have the physical stamina required for the job. b. old, sickly people and young laborers are useless to the nation because they cannot be productive citizens. c. the economy of the nation is burdened by the poor, the old, and the sickly who survive on charity and handouts. d. the living conditions of the poor and their lack of employment opportunities are serious concerns for the nation. reset next