As a Walden student, the main focus of your academic work is
likely creating positive social change. Your scholarly research may be on finding
therapies for treating PTSD or addressing a lack of housing assistance in your
community. These goals may seem distant while you pour over research and
critically analyze texts. However, as you are taking notes, developing your
thesis, and synthesizing your sources, change can occur on a smaller, local
level. One by one, the sentences you write can in fact be a source for good. By using active, rather than passive voice in your research writing, you can create
positive social change one simple sentence at a time.
When active
voice is used, the subject becomes the focus of the sentence. This emphasis
on the subject clarifies who is performing the action, and therefore, agency is
given to the subject. Using the active voice can create clarity and concision
in your writing, but it can also be a tool for giving your subject power.
For example, let’s take a look at a sentence in passive
voice: “The connections between BMI and heart disease were analyzed.” Here, the
attention is on what comes first in the sentence, “the connections,” rather
than who analyzed the connections. In passive voice, the researchers themselves
would not be important. Instead, what the researchers analyzed would be
emphasized.
Now, look closely at a similar sentence that has been
revised for active voice: “The researchers analyzed the connections between BMI
and heart disease.” Because the researchers come first, and they are performing
the action, the focus of the sentence is on the researchers and their work. The
reader’s attention is drawn to the researchers, rather than the connections
they analyzed.
While active voice can be used to clarify, it can also be
used to give a subject power and control. By using active voice in the
following sentence, I demonstrate patients’ agency over their own healthcare: “Every
day, the patients share their mental health concerns with their social worker.”
In this sentence, the patients are in control of their health, as they share their
concerns. The patients are not standing by while doctors and social workers
engage around them.
In the following example, passive voice takes away the
agency of the patient: “Every day, the patient’s mental health concerns are
shared with their social worker.” In this sentence, it is unclear who is
sharing the patient’s health concerns with the social worker. Perhaps a doctor
or staff member is providing this information on behalf of the patient, but the
patient is no longer in control. These may be small differences between
sentences, but with active voice, it is clearly communicated to the reader that
the patient has agency in the situation.
Let’s look at another example. In the following sentence,
passive voice emphasizes the object, trauma: “By using cognitive behavioral and
psychodynamic therapies, the trauma was worked through by the patient.
Alternatively, you could use the active voice to emphasize
the patient’s ability to overcome their trauma: “By using cognitive behavioral
and psychodynamic therapies, the patient worked through their trauma.” Here,
the power or control the patient has over their trauma is the focus. By using
active voice, the patient’s agency is celebrated, rather than trauma itself
becoming the focus.
While active voice creates clarity and concision in your
writing, more importantly, it is a way of holding the microphone for those who
have been silenced. It can be the means through which you share the stories of
others and give them control over their own experiences. Perhaps the steps towards social change really
do start at the sentence level. Through the structure of a simple sentence, you
can begin to write the steps for change.
Tasha Sookochoff is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Along with earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Stout and Depaul University, Tasha has written documentation for the U.S. House of Representatives that increases government transparency, blogged for DePaul University, copy-edited the Journal of Second Language Writing, tutored immigrants and refugees at literacy centers, and taught academic writing to college students.
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