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What “voice” should you project in your documents?

What “voice” should you project in your documents?. Much engineering communication is interactive and interpersonal. You may use “ we ” in documents this semester. In the letter only , you may use “ I .”. Another type of “voice”: passive or active. Active Voice the way we speak

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What “voice” should you project in your documents?

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  1. What “voice” should you project in your documents? • Much engineering communication is interactive and interpersonal. • You may use “we” in documents this semester. In the letter only, you may use “I.”

  2. Another type of “voice”: passive or active • Active Voice • the way we speak • more concise • says who did it • more active verb • emphasizes the doer of the action • all things being equal, the way to go • Passive Voice • literary • longer • more vague • less active verb • emphasizes the thing acted upon • sometimes, the only accurate way to go

  3. Passive Voice Active Voice Voice is a choice. • Elapsed time is indicated by a pointer. • The project was completed by the installation crew. • It is suggested that readings be recorded hourly. • A pointer indicates elapsed time. • The installation crew completed the project. • I suggest you record readings hourly.

  4. Passive Voice is longer. • “It was discovered during QD’s initial modeling efforts that the reservoir was actually a retrograde condensate reservoir.”

  5. Active Voice is shorter. • It was discovered during QD’s initial modeling efforts that the reservoir was actually a retrograde condensate reservoir. • Better: QD’s initial modeling efforts showed that the reservoir was actually a retrograde condensate reservoir. (17 words) (13-14 words)

  6. Passive voice can make writing ambiguous: Who is doing which testing? The scope of this strategy does not cover testing all the functionality of the different sub components. It is expected that each component be tested prior to the solution integration test.

  7. When to use which? Active Voice Passive Voice • to emphasize the agent of the action: • Previous researchers • established the relationship between chemical qualities and model parameters. • to emphasize the object: • Therelationshipbetween chemical qualities and model parameters was established by previousresearchers . • The water samplewas heated to a temperature of 1000C. • to emphasize the action: • JMC Consulting recommendsthat BP adopt a risk-communication plan.

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