You’ve enabled your Readability Statistics feature in Microsoft Word’s Spelling and Grammar Checker and evaluated a sample document. But based on your Readability scores, what action should you take?
Readability scores are especially helpful editing tools for writers of too-long and passive sentences. Recall from the Clarity Clinic that our goal is to write sentences that can be read once and immediately understood. Readable documents are more apt to be read in their entirety, and their content is more apt to be remembered. Readability indictors include:
- The number of sentences in each paragraph.
- The number of words in each sentence.
- The number of syllables in each word.
The Readability Statistics feature provides Passive Sentences, Reading Ease, and Grade Level scores, which help you gauge the readability level of your documents. With this Blog as our case study, let’s explore how to use the Passive Sentences score:
While most business documents require active voice for a clearer, more direct style, writers may use passive voice to improve flow or to emphasize certain content (such as a completed action). Use the Passive Sentences score to assess your use of passive voice.
For example, the Passive Sentences score for this Blog is 12%. Aiming for 0% as my score (no passive sentences), I check each passive voice occurrence to determine whether to change the verb to active voice. In a passive sentence—“A report is written by the consultant,” the subject of the sentence is acted upon. In an active sentence –“The consultant writes a report,” the subject of the sentence is the doer of the action described by the verb–a more natural sentence pattern for English.
Reviewing my Blog, I begin with this excerpt—
ACTIVE VOICE VERSION: Our goal is to write sentences that readers read once and immediately understand. [This clause has 13 words with “readers” the subject of the active verbs “read” and “understand.”]
PASSIVE VOICE VERSION: Our goal is to write sentences that are read once and immediately understood. [This clause also has 13 words with “that” the subject of the passive verbs “are read” and “understood.”]
In this instance, the active and passive voice versions are the same length. The active voice version’s verbs are in present tense, giving a sense of immediacy. But the active voice clause also contains the words “readers read.” I used the passive voice version to emphasize the actions (“read” and “understood”) rather than the doer of the action (“readers”), which is implied.
Although I have decided to keep the passive voice version of this sentence, my Passive Sentences score made me re-visit the sentence, giving me the opportunity to consider revising the sentence with the active voice version. Changing from passive to active voice often makes sentences shorter and stronger. I certainly prefer the active and natural “I begin with this excerpt” to the passive and awkward “This excerpt is begun by me.”
In the next Blog, we’ll look at the Reading Ease score. In the meantime, set up the Readability Statistics feature on your computer and use the Passive Sentences score to assess your use of passive voice in your documents.
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