Why do readers prefer active voice? Lessons from Yoda and Ivar the Boneless

What is active voice (and why should you care)?

Read these 2 versions of a sentence:

Version 1: The director circulated a draft.

Version 2: A draft was circulated by the director.

Which did you find easier to read? Version 2, I’m guessing. But why?

Some will say, oh, that’s easy. Because it’s in active voice.

Yes, it is. But what does that mean exactly?

Grammatical breakdown of version 1: active voice

Subject	Verb	Object
the director	circulated	a draft

Grammarians will summarise this word order as SVO (subject–verb–object).

But are you familiar with those terms?

Most people are not – even those who are very good writers – so, if you find the terminology confusing, you are not alone.

Let’s have a go at describing active voice in simpler terms.

Actor	Action	Acted on
the director	circulated	a draft

Someone (or something) performs an action on something (or someone).

In active voice, the subject is the actor or doer. The verb is the action. And the object is the person or thing being acted on.

For now, let’s use those simpler terms to describe the word order in active voice: actor-action-acted on.

How does that word order change in passive voice?

Grammatical breakdown of version 1: passive voice

Acted on	Action	Actor
a draft	was circulated by	the director

You’ll see that passive voice inverts the order. In the example above, the actor comes last, not first.

Does it make that much difference? Yes, it does. Because readers prefer active voice. 

But if you’re like me, you’ll want to know why that is and you’ll want some proof. So, let’s dig into this a little further. I will make the case that, generally, you should choose active voice because:

1. English speakers expect it – even if Yoda doesn’t.
2. We’ve expected it more since the time of Ivar the Boneless.
3. Research says it’s easier for our brains to process.

1. Why do readers expect active voice?

Look at these 3 words and create a sentence:

eat |  grass  |  cows

I’m guessing you came up with ‘cows eat grass’, yes?

That word order will seem completely logical to you. Of course, it does. But it wouldn’t to Yoda. Yoda would look at those 3 words and come up with ‘grass cows eat’.

So, why do we, as English speakers, gravitate to ‘cows eat grass’? Because it puts the subject in front of the verb in front of the object.

Actor	Action	Acted on
cows	eat	grass

That’s what we expect in English because that’s the dominant word order in our language.
According to the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English,  98–99% of sentences in spoken English use the active voice order of actor–action–acted on.

Perhaps you’re thinking, ‘well, that’s all well and good for spoken English, but we’re not talking about speaking – we’re talking about writing.’ Fair point. But active voice dominates on the page, too.

The same reference estimates that 95–97% of fiction writing uses active voice, and in news writing, it’s 90–93%.

This means that, overwhelmingly, English speakers will expect to read sentences that move from actor to action to acted on.

This is true even for people who have never studied grammar or word order.

And we’ve been expecting this word order for a very long time.

2. How did Ivar the Boneless affect English grammar?

English wasn’t always so reliably SVO in structure. In fact, if anything, it more often used an SOV (subject–object–verb) structure – like Latin. But, in truth, it was a bit all over the shop.

In Old English, word order was much less fixed than it is in English today. Why? Because it could be.

What’s changed?

Let’s revisit some SVO sentences to see how we typically treat nouns in a sentence today.

Subject (actor)	Verb (action)	Object (acted on)
the sun	lit	the room
Galileo	observed	the sun

You’ll see that ‘sun’ is spelled the same whether it’s the subject or the object – whether it’s the actor or the acted on.

This will seem entirely unremarkable to you today, but it would have shocked speakers of Old English.

Why?

Because Old English commonly changed the ending of the noun to show if it was the subject or the object – whether it was the actor or the acted on.

In that first sentence, when ‘sun’ is the subject, they’d have used the word ‘sunne’.

In the second, when ‘sun’ is the object, they’d have used the word ‘sunnan’.

	Subject	Object
Modern English	sun	sun
Old English	sunne	sunnan

The different endings – or inflections –  helped the reader identify the subject and the object, which meant word order was less critical. However, we lost those helpful markers some time after the Vikings invaded England in the 9th century.

The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings didn’t come to any formal accord about dropping these endings. And Ivar the Boneless didn’t lead a vicious, vengeful campaign to stamp out the practice. Those helpful word endings simply fell away as the 2 lingually distinct groups started interacting with one another.

But hang on.

If the subject and object were no longer spelled differently, how did they then tell which was which? Primarily through word order.

To ease communication after we lost those endings, the language settled far more consistently and reliably into the word order we know today: actor–action–acted on or, if you prefer, subject–verb–object.

That’s why, since that Viking invasion, English speakers have not only expected this order, but we’ve also relied on it more heavily to quickly turn words into meaning.

3. Does the research back this up?

That active voice seems easier to read than passive voice is obvious to most. But it’s nice to know that there’s some research to back up our gut instincts.

In a 2013 study, researchers used MRIs to assess the relative cognitive loads of processing active and passive sentences.

What does that mean?

They looked at which sentences our brains found easier to process: active or passive? The study came up with a clear winner: active voice.

An early study by renowned cognitive psychologist George A Miller (1962) suggested that simpler structures like active voice reduce the burden on our short-term memory, making comprehension easier.

And a study by Givón (1995) concluded that we understand sentences in active voice more quickly than passive ones because they align with how humans naturally process information.

The evidence seems clear: in general, you should opt for active voice. It’s easier to read, there are good reasons why it’s easier to read and the research confirms we’re not just imagining it.

But don’t give up on passive voice entirely.

4. Is it ever acceptable to use passive voice?

Yes, it is. And in our workshops, we identify 4 or 5 different situations where passive voice is not only acceptable, but preferable. Here is just one.

I’m about to send this email to all 3,000 staff in my organisation: ‘As Alexa has not completed the framework, we’ll have to delay the launch.’

This sentence uses active voice – it has the actor (Alexa) ahead of the action (completed). But does that make it the right choice? No, it almost certainly does not.

Alexa, for one, will not be thrilled. And if you want to remain on cordial terms with your valued colleague, you will, on this occasion, not use active voice.

A better option would be to de-identify the actor, and that means using passive voice. Try this: ‘As the framework has not been completed, we’ll have to delay the launch.’

That’s passive. The actor is not only not in front of the action, she’s not there at all. Cognitively, that’s the worst brand of passive on the market. It’s doing particularly nasty things to your brain. But in this situation, it’s going to produce the better outcome. Your message about the delayed launch is clear and to the point, and, perhaps more importantly, you’ll still be on speaking terms with Alexa.

And that’s what plain English is all about. We teach tools, not rules. Active voice is nearly always going to be the better choice, but there are exceptions. If you want to learn about some of these exceptions – and get a whole lot of insights about effective sentence structure – come along to one of our workshops.

Next steps

Sign up for our new online, self-paced refresher course. It’s a great way to remind yourself of all the key plain language principles, including using vigorous verbs.