Passive Voice?

[Joe 90]

I'm trying to write to a professional standard despite the fact that i've not done any decent writing since i left school. It makes "the highest professional standard suitable for publication purposes" a little difficult to achieve.

Word keeps picking me up on grammatical errors which it refers to as the use of 'passive voice'

Could someone possibly make some sense of this for me? I can't correct is without understanding it :(

[semi-pro waster]

This link (http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html) may be helpful but as I understand it essentially if you are using the passive voice you are not making explicit what is happening - this tends to be less involving for the reader and may make comprehension more difficult for your reader.

If you highlight a couple of sentences that you are unsure of then someone may be able to help. I'm not particularly great at English in the sense of being able to tell you in an abstract way about verbs, nouns or the past participle (for instance) but if I can read it then I'm usually able to see why it is wrong so if that's any use to you I'm happy to have a look.

[Joe 90]

aye, thanks. managed to fix what I'd just written but still stuff from others in my group like this;
Overall, Skylar (2009) found that 80.5% of learners studied said they performed better when learning in Virtual Classroom Elluminate, rather than an asynchronous text-based environment. Therefore, it can be argued that whatever your learning style is, the majority of students prefer to study in Virtual Classrooms than by asynchronous methods.

when 'it can be argued' is in passive voice.

[semi-pro waster]

I think your problem there is that you're not making a definitive statement i.e. you are couching it in terms that allow for manoeuver because it is not an absolute, not all students do prefer to use Virtual Classrooms.

"Therefore, the conclusion to be drawn is that whatever your learning style is, the majority..." might work as putting it in the active voice. I'm not perfectly certain of that but you could always try it and see what Word says, remember though that Word is not completely infallible.

[Mark]

when 'it can be argued' is in passive voice.

Oh yes, Wikipedia calls those weasel words (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word#Passive_and_middle_voice)

In that particular case - "it can be argued" - by whom? Surely it's your job to make the argument, not leave it to others to do it for you.

[Jonny69]

I'd agree. I've been warned not to use it can be argued (Joe 90, 2009)

(Though technically, to reference you using the Harvard system, I'd have to refer to you as 90.)

Ok I'll stop and get back to work...

[Joe 90]

LoL ;D

I didn't write it :P it was another member of my group. Our assignment is now complete though.

Will have to see if its best in the class and will be selected for publication :eek:

[semi-pro waster]

Oh yes, Wikipedia calls those weasel words (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word#Passive_and_middle_voice)

I thought of that phrase but decided it could come across as unduly perjorative, they're very handy at times but if you're trying to make a definitive statement they're utterly useless of course.