Examples:
* Active - concise, complete info: The manager approved the proposal.
* Passive - wordy, awkward: The proposal was approved by the manager.
* Passive - missing info: The proposal was approved. [by who?]
Most experienced writers will use active unless they have a specific reason not to, e.g., to emphasize another element of the sentence, as the third bullet's sentence emphasizes approval.
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edited for clarity, detail
- The Manage User menu item changes a user's status from active to inactive.
- A user's status is changed from active to inactive using the Manage User menu item.
In languages with more flexible word order, you could just switch the two without passive voice. You could just say the equivalent of "The ball kicked John," with it being clear somehow that the ball is the grammatical object and John the subject, without needing to use the passive voice at all.
Unfortunately, the resulting correlation between the passive voice and formality does sometimes lead poor writers to use the passive in order to seem more formal, even when it's not the best choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.
E-Prime excludes forms such as be, being, been, present tense forms (am, is, are), past tense forms (was, were) along with their negative contractions (isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't), and nonstandard contractions such as ain't and 'twas. E-Prime also excludes contractions such as I'm, we're, you're, he's, she's, it's, they're, there's, here's, where's, when's, why's, how's, who's, what's, and that's.
Some scholars claim that E-Prime can clarify thinking and strengthen writing, while others doubt its utility.
At the risk of derailing into insane pedantry land, this part is kinda true, so maybe not the best analogy?
From routing efficiency: https://www.ge.com/news/reports/ups-drivers-dont-turn-left-p...
And also safety: https://www.phly.com/rms/blog/turning-left-at-an-intersectio...
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNRhI4Cc_QmsihIjUtqro3uBk...
It means "I decided to do this, but I don't have the balls to admit it."
"A decision was made to..." is often code for "The current author didn't agree with [the decision that was made] but it was outside their ability to influence"
Often because they were overruled by a superior, or outvoted by peers.
Although arguably it would be clearer with the active voice and which specific teams / level of leadership aligned on it, usually in the active voice people just use the royal “we” instead for this purpose which doesn’t add any clarity.
Alternatively sometimes I don’t know exactly who made the decision, I just learned it from an old commit summary. So in that case too it’s just important that some people at some time made the decision, hopefully got the right approvals, and here we are.
Oh the horror. There are 2 additional words "was" and "by". The weight of those two tiny little words is so so cumbersome I can't believe anyone would ever use those words. WTF??? wordy? awkward?
