In journalism, clear, concise writing is paramount. Readers need to be able to grasp the story quickly and effortlessly. Here’s where active voice becomes a useful tool you can use to make your writing a little better.
Active voice injects energy and clarity into your writing to ensure the message resonates with the audience. It prioritizes the subject performing the action, making sentences read more direct and engaging while focusing on the most important elements of the story.
This brief guide to using active voice will give you the knowledge needed to make your writing go from passive to powerful.
Why Active Voice Matters in Journalism
The difference between active and passive voice lies in the structure of the sentence. Here’s the breakdown:
Active Voice – The subject performs the action
Example: Police officers arrested the suspect. (Subject: Police officers, Action: arrested, Object: suspect)
Passive Voice – The action is performed on the subject
Example: The suspect was arrested by police officers. (Subject: suspect, Action (passive): was arrested, Object: police officers)
While both sentences convey the same information, the active voice construction delivers clear advantages for journalists:
Clarity – Active voice avoids using unnecessary words, making complex information easier to understand for a broad audience. This is a common issue with new journalists.
Engagement – Active voice injects energy and immediacy into your writing, and keeps readers hooked on the story’s development.
Focus – Active voice ensures the subject performing the action takes center stage, highlighting the crucial elements of your story.
Strength – Active voice is generally shorter, stronger, and more direct. It allows for stories to resonate with readers by delivering information in an impactful way.
At this point, it’s important to remember that passive voice is still going to be used in your stories. While we prefer to use active voice, there are instances where passive is the better choice.
Consider the sentence: “A lion has eaten the president.”
Here, the passive voice construction is more effective. Why? Because the overwhelmingly important subject of the story is the president, not the lion. Placing the president at the beginning of the sentence emphasizes the newsworthy aspect of the event.
Transforming Your Writing
Eventually, you should be able to quickly look at any story and know how to convert it from passive to active sentence-by-sentence. Here are steps to help you figure it out for your own:
- Identify the Verb – The first step is to pinpoint the verb in the sentence. Is it in the passive voice? This typically means it’s a form of “to be” followed by a past participle.
- Find the Doer of the Action – Next, identify the subject who or what is performing the action described by the verb.
- Rewrite the Sentence – Finally, rewrite the sentence to place the doer of the action as the subject.
Improving at Active Voice
Here are some practical tips to help you integrate active voice seamlessly into your journalistic writing:
Read aloud. This is a big one! Read your writing aloud to identify awkward phrasing or areas for improvement. Imagine you’re the reader seeing this for the first time, how would you react? Does your writing flow naturally, or does it feel clunky? Active voice sentences typically sound smoother and more engaging when read aloud.
Practice makes perfect. Actively seek opportunities to practice writing in active voice. Start by rewriting existing articles you’ve written, or try creating social media posts on current events using active voice. The more you practice, the more comfortable you’ll become with this essential journalistic skill.
- Active voice thrives on strong verbs that convey action and energy. Instead of saying “is experiencing,” try “witnesses,” “faces,” or “battles.”
- While active voice is key, don’t fall into the trap of monotonous sentence structure. Experiment with sentence length and phrasing to keep your writing engaging.
- Active voice thrives on strong verbs that convey action and energy. Instead of saying “is experiencing,” try “witnesses,” “faces,” or “battles.”
- While active voice is key, don’t fall into the trap of monotonous sentence structure. Experiment with sentence length and phrasing to keep your writing engaging.
Active voice is a key part to writing clear and compelling stories. Learning how to use it effectively takes time, so embrace the learning process, experiment, and most importantly, write! The more you write using active voice, the more comfortable and confident you’ll become.
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