Substandard writing is one of the most significant "dirty little secrets" of the workplace. Poor writing causes lost time, stress and discomfort. Many employees, ranging from executives to data entry clerks, privately struggle with writing and are too ashamed to ask for help. According to studies, most employees spend upwards of 25% their time on writing tasks (emails, memos, reports, etc.). Little things such as commas, semicolons, and whether to use an active vs. passive voice cause a significant amount of angst in the workplace. Larger issues, such as, how to report bad news and who should be copied on an email also cause significant anxiety.

If we are honest, all of us have spent countless hours in front of our computers struggling with an element of writing. The volume of these hours is only rivaled by the volume of emails that we have received that are confusing, insulting, and in error grammatically. These poor communications result directly in misunderstandings, confusion, and lost sales.

Our writing represents us. Regardless of the fairness of it, your coworkers determine your level of credibility and intelligence based on the emails that you send. Additionally, your writing serves as a major means of evaluation by your superiors. No one normally knows the work you have done until you put in a written report; and if your report is poorly written, your work will appear to have been poor. Accordingly, it may come as no surprise that in a recent study, a consensus of Fortune 500 executives stated that poor reading and writing skills were the number one cause of employees being terminated within their first year.

We need to lift the veil of shame and uncertainty associated with poor business writing. A focus on professional writing will inure to organizational and individual business success. Business writing training is essential to obtaining this success.

Many of us create written documents and compositions that are disseminated to a variety of readers for a variety of purposes. Often times, however, we create a document without truly clarifying and understanding who our audience is. Understanding your audience of readers is one of the essential elements of effective written communication.

Audience analysis should be done as part of the pre- writing process. As soon as you construct the main objectives you aim to achieve, examine your readers. There are several fundamental audience analysis questions that you must answer before progressing to constructing an outline for your written composition:

- Who are they, and how many are there? The number of people you anticipate reading your document may impact your tone and level of familiarity. Think about it: would you give a speech to five people the same way you would give a speech to 500 people?

- What is their overall level of expertise regarding the subject matter? What portion of the audience are subject matter experts (SMEs)?
The level of expertise possessed by your audience will help determine the amount of technical vocabulary, jargon, and industry-specific terminology in your document. It will also impact the levels of elaboration and specificity into which you will delve.

- What motives and/or agendas do the readers have when reading your document?
Understanding why your audience is reading your document will affect what you write. Any politics, latent issues, and the current professional environment will influence what you write and how you write it.

- What is the readers’ overall level of interest for the issue you are addressing?
Your readers' interest level will impact the tone and style of your writing. Writing involves communicating information in a clear, concise manner. At the same time, it is the author’s responsibility to keep the reader engaged.

Conducting an analysis along these parameters will give you an accurate snapshot of your readers. From there, your document will be “speaking your readers’ language”, instead of “speaking your language”. Thorough and accurate audience analysis results in empathetic, effective writing.

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Like a city’s architecture, a sentence’s architecture should be adaptable to its environment. The basic architecture or structure of a sentence is subject- verb-object. The way that the structure is viewed is voice. There are advantages and conversion techniques in the use of active voice and passive voice.

In sentences written in active voice, the subject performs the action expressed in the verb; in other words, the subject acts or ‘does something.’ Ex. The contract manager chose the multiyear proposal.

In this case, the subject (contract manager) is taking action (chose). There are some advantages to use of active voice. In most non-scientific writing situations, active voice is preferred over passive voice. Why? In many cases, sentences in active voice are clearer and more direct than passive voice sentences. Active voice sentences are also more concise than passive voice sentences. This is due to the pattern that fewer words are required to expressed action in active voice than in passive voice. Active voice sentences typically present ideas in a strong and direct manner and are referred to as emphatic. Emphatic sentences are often used in maintaining a linear, concrete style approach to composition. In other cases, passive voice sentences may be used.

In sentences written in passive voice, the subject receives the action expressed in the verb; in other words, the subject is acted upon or something is done to the subject.
Ex. The multiyear proposal was chosen by the contract manager.

In this case, the subject (contract manager) taking of action (chosen by) is secondary to the object (multiyear proposal). Passive sentences do not have an explicit agent of action. Nevertheless, in certain writing situations, passive voice is the logical choice. Writers in the sciences conventionally use passive voice more than writers in other fields. Why? Scientific writers often need to highlight the action and the object of the action rather than the subject / agent performing the action. Passive voice sentences deliberately provide an absence of a direct manner and are referred to as un-emphatic. Un- emphatic sentences are often used in maintaining an objective, neutral tone devoid of bias. One caution is that overuse of the passive voice can cause readers to lose interest or become confused about the general subject matter. These sentences can be converted. To change a passive voice sentence to an active voice sentence, use the following instruction:

• Carefully consider who or what is performing the action expressed in the verb.
• Make the agent the object of a “by the” phrase.
• Make what is acted upon the subject of the sentence.
• Change the verb to a form of be + past participle.

In conclusion, use of active voice and passive voice based on document type and audience is recommended. Robert Krull, Professor of Communication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has researched this subject matter. This research demonstrates that sentences in active voice are more easily understood than passive voice sentences, in part, because the agent of action is clearer. Concerning the writing of instructions, Prof. Krull’s research has also found that the agent of action should be oriented to users and not to the equipment. When writing procedures, the active voice with strong verbs is recommended.

Ex. Click the button. (Not - the button is clicked.) This action opens the dialog box. (Not - the dialog box was opened by this action.)

The voice used in procedure instructions and user guide documentation should be different from standard operating procedures and policy process documents. Training documentation requires an active voice in establishing an instructive, user - oriented tone. Standard operating procedures and policy process documents may use passive voice sentences to ‘document the process.’ Based on document type and audience, one voice (passive or active) may be more appropriate to use rather than another voice.

Hodges, J.C., Whitten, M. E., et. Al Harbrace College Handbook Harcourt Brace Jovanovich San Diego 1990

Krull, Robert, Comparative Assessment of Document Usability With Writing Quality Measures Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute www.stc.org

Owl Online Writing Lab, Active and Passive Voice owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass. html