Action Verbs and Active Voice

Action verbs are the strongest, most concise type of verb. Documents, especially résumés, communicate most effectively and concisely when you use action verbs instead of helping or “be” verbs. Technical writers always use the active voice. All writers, including creative writers, improve their writing when they learn to recognize and use the active voice.

 

What Are Action Verbs?

Action verbs are verbs that show what action a subject is doing. All verbs that are not “helping” or “be” verbs are action verbs.

Examples accept, determine, find, gamble, keep, observe, seek, yell

 

What Is Active Voice?

The active voice is when the subject of the sentence is doing or acting upon the verb in the sentence, and it usually uses active verbs.

Example Michael decided he wanted Alfredo’s Pizza for lunch.

Note The subject (Michael) is doing the main action of the sentence (deciding), and “decide” is an action verb.

This is as opposed to passive voice, in which the subject is being acted upon by some other actor. Passive voice uses “be” verbs plus the past participles of action verbs.

Example It was decided that the office would buy Alfredo’s Pizza for lunch.

Note The subject (it) does not refer to whoever is doing the deciding.

 

Why Use Active Voice?

Ambiguity

Sentences in passive voice can be ambiguous. Take the passive voice example above. In that sentence, we cannot tell who decided that the office would buy Alfredo’s Pizza for lunch. When you use passive voice repeatedly, the reader can get lost and misunderstand your meaning because they cannot tell who is doing what. Using active voice solves this problem.

Concision

Sentences in active voice are often shorter than sentences in passive voice, making them more concise. Concise writing is direct and more effective than wordy writing.

Example The sentence in passive voice was written by the tutor.

Example The tutor wrote the sentence in active voice.

 

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