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Passive sentences: how to kick it out of your writing
Welcome to today’s issue of Efikó, a weekly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, with a focus on content marketing, writing, social strategy, and living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.
Hello 👋
Been a while…🙂PTO was fun. Ronan’s baptism was even better.Thanksgiving was the next day…and that was fantabulous.
All in all, I got some much-needed time away from work.One thing, though. No matter how experienced you are, no one prepares for the wall of work that hits you booooom in the face when you get back to work after some time away 😮💨
But enough about me, how are you all doing?
Today, we’ll be talking passive sentences
The passive voice isn’t always wrong. But avoid it as much as possible!
It’s wordy. It’s weak writing. It’s vague.
The Ottawa hockey team was given medals by the Prime Minister.
Yuck!
The passive voice hides your subjects and objects. And the sentence ends up unclear. And I do agree that sometimes, you can’t just help but end up with some passive sentences in your writing.
But..when you can, reduce it to the barest minimum. I think the Hemingway App’s rule is two or less.
Here are some tactics I use ( and you should too):
I got this from Monzo (the online bank):
Add ‘...by monkeys’ to the end of any phrase you think might be passive. If it still makes sense, then it’s passive! Easy as that.
A decision has been made to close your account …by monkeys
This bug will be fixed in the next update ...by monkeys
If you make a complaint, it will be escalated to a complaint specialist ...by monkeys
If you try the same thing with the active versions, they don’t make sense. That’s how you know they’re active.
We’ve decided to close your account ...by monkeys.
We’ll fix this bug in the next update ... by monkeys
If you make a complaint, we’ll escalate it to a complaint specialist ...by monkeys
None of that makes sense, so these are all active.Monkeys. Who knew?
Look out for the word by or state of being verbs (am, are, were, was, being, been, be):
Passive: The baptism ceremony was planned by Dozie.
Active: Dozie planned the baptism ceremony
Passive: The Ottawa hockey team was given medals by the Prime Minister
Active: The Prime Minister gave the Ottawa hockey team medals.
Passive: The party was enjoyed by Uka.
Active: Uka enjoyed the party.
Look out for two verbs stuck together (was smiling; was planned):
Passive: The novel was written by Bibie.
Active: Bibie wrote the novel.
Use the Hemingway Editor:
The Hemingway App makes your writing punchy and bold. And it’s free!
When can you use the passive voice?
You can get away with the passive voice when the person/object being acted upon is more important than the doer.
The Nigerian president’s house was robbed.
Here, we don’t really care who robbed Aso Rock. Yes, we do want to know who had the guts to creep in there and rob. But the object here, Aso Rock, is more important than the bold robber.
Capisce?
If you read one thing
Temitayo’s piece on getting paid as a writer is an excellent way to spend your weekend.
Content tools
A content tool I discovered this week
Here are some free resources for keeping your copywriting fluff-free:
The Handy List of Human Words—A good list for converting robotic language into the human language (e.g., "deactivate" "turn off").
Use Simple Words and Phrases—Another good list, this one from a group of federal workers who believe government writing should be plain and clear.
Not Enough Writers
Our YouTube channel is popping these days. Not with subscribers, though 🤪
But I guess we have to start from somewhere.
Here’s Paul David of Literal Humans on knowing your range as a writer:
Know someone who might find Not Enough Writers beneficial? Please get them to sign up here!
Content writing jobs (Remote/Freelance)
And here’s a Google Docs link that also includes high-paying pitching opportunities
All the best, folks. Please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this helpful. 🙏🏾
My biggest takeaway this week 🚀
Be the senior that your junior self wanted to meet. Be kind to others.
What I’m thinking about
Fads come and go. But fundamentals are forever. Focus on the fundamentals.
3 interesting facts to impress your friends
A newborn panda is smaller than a mouse.
Ducks shake their tails when they’re happy.
Every year, lots of new trees grow because of squirrels forgetting where they buried their nuts.
What’s your most significant content marketing challenge?
Reply to this email. Let me know what you’d like me to cover next.
I read every reply.
Plus, if you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here. Or just hit the reply button.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Be good out there. If you can’t be good, be careful.
I’ll be back on 10/22.
Dozie
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