Use the active voice

The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive. However, this rule doesn't , of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice. The need to make a particular word the subject of the sentence will often determine which voice is to be used.

I shall always remember my first trip to Boston.

The dramatists of the Restoration are little esteemed today.

The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.

主動語態通常比被動語態直接且有力.習慣性的使用主動語態可使你的寫作強而有力.所有的寫作都在此範疇,不僅只強調動作的記敘文而已. 用一個主動的及物動詞替換掉無實際內容的表述以後,描寫文及說明文裡軟弱無力句子往往可以變得生動且明確.

There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.

Dead leaves covered the ground.

At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard.

The cock's crow came with dawn.

The reason he left college was that his health became impaired.

Failing health compelled him to leave college.

It was not long before she was very sorry that she had said what she had.

She soon repented her words.

Note, in the examples above, that when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.

Words:

Vigorous, principally, perfunctory, tame, lively, emphatic, forcible, discard, entirely

Sentences:

Not only A but B 不只 A 還有 B

This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind

Substitute N1 for N2

substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.

Such N1 as N2

such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.