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passive voicepassive voicePosted Jun 24, 2011 18:31 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)Parent article: The platform device API
Once both a platform device and an associated driver have been registered, the driver's probe() function will be called and the device will be instantiated. Registration of device and driver are usually done in different places and can happen in either order. A call to platform_device_unregister() can be used to remove a platform device. Here's an excellent example of the evils of passive voice (and its cousin, nominalization - using a noun instead of a verb for an action). It is not immediately clear who is doing all these things (registering, calling, instantiating, using). Were the paragraph in active voice, that information would be unmissable. Plus there's the fact that the human brain is set up to comprehend things by forming an image of A acting on B, rather than of some abstract action by abstract agents taking place in the ether. So a reader would have to do considerably less processing to comprehend this paragraph in active voice.
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passive voice Posted Jun 28, 2011 12:13 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>Plus there's the fact that the human brain is set up to comprehend things by forming an image of A acting on B, rather than of some abstract action by abstract agents taking place in the ether. So a reader would have to do considerably less processing to comprehend this paragraph in active voice.
[Citation Needed]
I don't disagree that this particular example could be improved as you say, but your generalization from that seems suspect. It's entirely dependent on whether the agent or the patient is the point of interest.
(I've noticed the passive voice is strongly discouraged by American style guides, even in cases where it is clearly the better choice, whereas it's more widely accepted in the UK for some reason. Given this, it's possible that familiarity has some effect on the brain's ability to comprehend.)
passive voice Posted Jun 28, 2011 15:37 UTC (Tue) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Plus there's the fact that the human brain is set up to comprehend things by forming an image of A acting on B, rather than of some abstract action by abstract agents taking place in the ether. So a reader would have to do considerably less processing to comprehend this paragraph in active voice. You may be confusing multiple arguments, because I did not generalize from this example to my statement about psychology. I got the generalization from a technical writing class so long ago I can't remember, taught by a technical communications researcher. From that, I specialized to criticism of this particular sentence. It's entirely dependent on whether the agent or the patient is the point of interest. ... it's possible that familiarity has some effect on the brain's ability to comprehend I don't see the connection. It doesn't seem to matter whether you're focusing on A or B in the proposition that it's easier to comprehend A acting on B than the abstract action. (E.g. John throwing a ball as opposed to the abstract concept of the throwing of a ball). But I admit it is possible to write passive voice which actually does describe A acting on B ("the ball was thrown by John"), even though often the very reason the writer used passive voice was to avoid identifying the agent. Where the agent is so exposed, the only thing left to argue about is whether the brain starts processing "thrown" before integrating John into the picture. And that might depend upon familiarity with the syntax.
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