You Say Active and She Says Passive — Facing the Boss

You write. Carefully, yet quickly. You check for problem 1: passives. Nope, nothing. You got them all. Then, problem 2: wordiness. Nope, you cut every extra article and preposition. Pleased, you show your boss, ready for her okay. Yet she hands back the paper with loops and letters from first line to last. You look closely and, surprised and disgusted, notice that she’s inserted extra words and has replaced the active voice with the passive. What do you do? Depending on your boss, you make one of these two choices:
1. Explain the difference between the passive and active voice and wordy and concise word use as objectively as possible. Show her sections from this book as backup. Let her know that style is more a matter of contemporary mind-set and rules than of personal taste.
2. Ask whether what your boss says, goes. If so, keep the changes. it’s unfair, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing what’s right when writing, what isn’t, and why.
At this stage of rewriting, you should be ruthless about weeding out the passive voice, flat language, negativity, and all the other common problems of business writing. Learn to recognize them. Identify the problems that plague you most. Then skim through your document for their telltale signs.