Avoid the Passive Voice
What's passive voice, and why should I avoid it?
Writers sometimes try to sound more authoritative by overusing the passive voice, a sentence structure that obscures or omits the person performing the action. A passive construction consists of the past participle of the verb, plus a form of the verb "to be." The passive voice increases wordiness by adding the "to be" verb; it also blunts the force of the main verb, often producing dull and confusing prose.
Examples of passive voice:
The letter was mailed. (Who mailed it?)
Mistakes were made. (The classic passive-voice maneuver, which neither courts of law nor readers should accept!)
Sometimes passive constructions include the agent (the person or thing performing the action), as in this sentence:
The fly ball was caught by Kenny Lofton.