More on passive vs. active. As I and many other bloggers have noted, the condemnation of passive voice has tempered somewhat and most agree that active voice is not always best. Lynn Gaertner-Johnson at Business Writing points out that Microsoft Word can help identify passive voice in your writing. Simply change the grammar check option to “grammar and style” rather than “grammar only.” Then Word will alert you to the passive voice just as it alerts you to sentence fragments and misspellings.
Active and Passive, Again
February 1st, 2007 · 2 Comments
Tags: Grammar
2 responses so far ↓
Catch Passive Voice With Your Computer : Texas Appellate Law Blog // // Mar 7, 2007 at 1:58 am
[...] Thanks to Susan McDonald and Lynn Gaertner-Johnson for the tip. | RSS | Subscribe by E-mail | Digg [...]
Justice (ret.) C. L. Ray // // Mar 7, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Getting to the place you mentioned is not easy in Word 2007, but it is available. Click on the Office Button (top left hand corner of Word 2007 screen) ; then click on Word Options at the botton of the dialogue box; next click on Proofing in the in the left hand column in the Word Options box; in the dialogue box headed by Change how Word corrects and formats your text go down to When correcting grammar and spelling; then click on the Grammar and Style in the drop down menu that appears beside the words Writing Styles; then click on the box to the right that is labeled Settings; that will then bring up the dialogue box with a heading of Grammar Settings; go down the list to the heading of Style; under Style, check Passive Sentences; and then “bingo” you been successful.
There are lots of other options along the way. Best of luck to those who follow the trail to the desired result.
Justice (ret.) C. L. Ray
Supreme Court of Texas
328-9238
clray4523@hotmail.com
Austin, TX 78746
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