Report Writing Style: Active Vs Passive Voice and Readability Tips

welcome back friends presently we are discussing report style or language of reports in the previous lecture we talked about the different ways of using words while writing a report and then we talked about the use of words and in the category of words we talked about

how cliches jargons circumlocutions or roundabout expressions they make our writing difficult and in this lecture we shall be talking about how any information can be presented in a variety of ways suppose you are saying something as as you

you remember while we are talking about acknowledgement and there we had a chance to say because in acknowledgment what you do is you are going to thank people and there are so many people you are going to thank so if you use the same style ah as i am thankful to ah mr mohan ah

for recording my lecture and again you say i am also thankful to mr arun i am also thankful to mr pankaj now as a reader you will find that it actually becomes a sort of monotonous one hence in order to provide variety you actually have

to bring var variety by making use of voice as you know voices are both active and passive suppose you say something ah in an active voice and you say the same thing in the passive voice the effect will be different so we will be talking about ah the two voices

how they bring a sort of impact when you are writing the report then we will also talk to talk about the sentence style when we say sentence style you know in a in a later sentences can be a small sentences can be short but in reports you will often find sentences have

to be long but imagine if all these sentences are short only and if all the sentences are long only then what will happen then things will become very difficult so we have to bring a short of we have to bring the short of variety and this variety

can be done by making use both of short sentence and long sentence by making use of passive suppose you say somebody you are responsible for this happening people may feel hurt but then if you say it in a different manner if you say ah i think it is your responsibility

now you are you or you say this responsibility has to be owned fine so now you have change the version the language is changed but the content is the same so ah depending upon the situation sometimes you have to use a sentence in an active way sometimes you have to use

sentence in a passive way while discussing letter writing you might have seen when you write a compliant letter because you are angry so you are using a an active sentence and active sentence in an active voice but when they respondent from

the other side he replies you in the passive way we will we will see it through examples how they can ah create a sort of impact then we will also be talking about noun clusters we shall also be talking about paragraph structure because in a letter you find a letter is confined

to one page or say two pages or sometimes even half a page but when you write a report it may go up to thirty pages thirty five pages like tha like that so there are so many paragraphs and as readers you have to switch from one paragraph to another and at times you find

you know even even when you are reading it everyone wants the sort of eye relief isnt it eye relief so this eye relief has to be provided through change of paragraph and when you are writing a paragraph which is very longer you are writing a paragraph where the

reader is not able even to stop because everyone wants to stop for some time in order to have some amount of rest and then we will also be talking about readability what is readability how can your report become readable first is voice as i said ah something can be said

in an active voice something can be said in a passive voice now here is a sentence ah which you can ah concentrate on the sentence reads like this the concentration by the training division of its time money and other resources into

a new program is not advisable from our point of view now look at this sentence this sentence is written in an active manner now when you read the sentence in an active voice the sentence not only becomes difficult but the sent sentence has been long now in such a situation you

can revise the sentence into passive or if you feel that active will do its better so here you find the sentence is written in these passive words in passive is not advisable from our point of view so the basic difference you should know are the basic difference between

an active and passive is the question of verbs know so if something is ah you said ah go there and bring me some tea go there and shut the door now these are all commands now but then if you command a person if you order a person

he may not like it but if you say you are requested to close the door i mean ah it is not only polite but it appears to have more impact same is the case so now here you find even though the sentence is in passive but if you make it into active so in active the

verbs come first in passive the verb is in its third form so here you see if you change it into active we dont advise the training division to concentrate its time money and other resources into a new program it becomes easier for readers to understand

but at times you find if you say somebody something in an active voice and that has a sort of allegation say for example let us take a land ah let us take a sentence from a a complaint letter since your recorder workers did not pack the tape recorders they got damaged

in the way now this is said in the active voice but then it appears to be a sort of allegation in order to neutralize it because you know when you say something ah in a passive voice you are going to neutralize the effect now the question is when you neutralize the

effect you have to understand the importance in certain ways in certain ah say situations you feel that message should be given but in a very neutral manner so that the other party is not affected because the person who is sitting on the other side the person who

is going to read it is as alive a person as us as you hence the need is to change the voice and say since the tape recorders were not packed properly now this language does not so any sort of allegation so depending upon varying upon the situation varying upon

these circumstances you have to choose either active or passive next is sentence style what exactly do we mean by sentence style sentences as i said can be long and short if a sentence is long the problem is where to keep the subject and

where to keep the verb if you are writing a long sentence you will find ah that by the time the reader reaches the end of the sentence the verb is lost so people is start thinking about the sentence so you have to decide ah where you if if you are going to give some

importance to ah to a particular aspect of the sentence you have to decide their place in the sentence their space in the sentence so either you can put them in the beginning or you can put them towards the end remember every reader wants to enjoy a sentence which

begins with a subject and the verb so the advice is put the verb just after the subject make them the subject of the sentence i mean anything of importance that has to be the subject of the sentence so frame your sentence in such a manner that subject comes

first and the verb comes next but not that the subject continues and the verb is towards the end naturally when there is a lot of nouns in a sentence it is very difficult to understand its verb and very difficult to establish the relation between the sentence and its meaning

even you know people have to understand the word order i mean if any subject or if any content is very important you have to think about its word order and this word order depends upon the importance of the subject i mean if you want to emphasize on a particular ah

subject or on a particular matter you have to see that you provide empathic word order and then as i discussed a in my previous lecture while we are talking about the outline of the report and their also we had said that your sentences should have a sort of parallel

construction now what do we mean by parallel construction i mean if you are following we the noun you follow noun performa following with the verb following with say an object like that so in order to ensure variety in your sentence

that is actually the core of the sentence style that is why when you are writing acknowledgement if the first sentence is i am thankful to second sentence may change its order and we can say suppose we say i am thankful to and then you have the same essence but you can

change you can also say i am indebted to i am indebted to fine i acknowledge fine i acknowledge so having said this you find all these sentences though the intention is to tha thank but then there is a sort of variety now there are some examples where you can find the sentence is

long but then if you simply change the order of the ah the word the meaning will accrue clearly for example some aspects of desktop publishing and top and word processors as well as desktop publishing programs have powerful control

over the appearance of printed words even in todays low cost word processor if you have a look at this sentence and think very carefully you will perhaps find that there is unnecessary you know unnecessary lengthening of the sentence but then in order to make it emphatic change

this style and say today even a low cost word processor can deliver now you see in the first sentence the this verb you know this verb have has come you know after a long time my dear friend but then that cannot work but in the second sentence as you can find ah

the verb can deliver comes just after few words he hence it shows more impact you can also look at the second sentence because wage rates are lower there the electronic parts are manufactured in mexico now you think about the importance of what you are saying

but if you simply revise it the elect you know there has to be a relationship between ah if if the sentence is long and there are two parts in the sentence in order to establish their association what you need to do is you one sentence or one clause should have a sort

of coherence with the other for example if you say the electronic parts are manufactured in mexico which has lower wage rates than the united states this is a comparative sentence where the writer tries to establish the meaning by making a sort of comparison you know there

are several ways you can create your sentences and there are several ways you ways you can establish meaning but sentences alone are not the heart of a report the report since it is a detailed discussion where you go on analyzing where you go on

interpreting the data where you go on evaluating the data where you go on showing the trend and hence because you have to keep your reader throughout involved so there has to be paragraph structure also and let us also try to understand how we have to create a paragraph which not

only creates meaning but which also continues to keep its readers involved in the subject that he or she is going to deliberate upon or ah present upon now ah let us say let your paragraph have a sort of unity i mean there are three mantras which all of you are should

try to utilize that there has to be a unity there has to be a coherence and there also has to be a sort of order if you follow these three your paragraph becomes readable your paragraphs becomes well neat and your paragraphs becomes glued i mean the

sentences are glood ah with each other the sentences are chipped in in such a manner that the reader feels like reading i mean you have to ensure that your report is to be read develop your topic logically a report as we have been saying is a factual written

formal representation of data interpretation and calculation hence it has to be systematic and something which is systematic cannot be devoid of logic so please maintain the logical ordering when you are writing a report and this is possible ah only when you link one

sentence with other but now you might be thinking about something that if there is a longer paragraph isnt it if there is a longer paragraph have you got the patience to read the entire paragraph because you know ah every paragraph will have

some sort of information and in order when you speak you know when i am speaking are you actually feel as if you are listening to me in such manner that every word that i am speaking or every unit of though thought that are being presented you are listening

to it likewise when a reader is reading you expect the same level of faith between your reader and yourself and that is possible when your paragraph is logically arranged because a logically arranged paragraph will conform to parallelism when we talk about the word

order an edge we had ah ah d said that you have to maintain an emphatic word order now how can word order be made emphatic look at this sentence the sentence here given for example is a long sentence but since we have maintained a word order ah in in the revised

way say suppose the sentences he is aware that he should uphold the authority to fire workers off his supervisors who disobey orders whenever possible as a management representative now this sentence does not have any problem it is grammatically correct but the sentence

ah appears to be long the sentence appears to be disinteresting in order to make this sentence interesting what we need to do is we need to create a sort of word order because we are talking about the person he is aware who is aware the as a he is aware of how he

is aware as a managed management representative so let us change the word order and say he as a management representative is aware that he should uphold the authority to fire workers who disobey order i mean you see the level of easiness the level of ease the level of

simplicity that has been done simply by changing the word order i i do hope that you also will come across sentences which are long but with little bit of your effort you can make the sentence not only easy but readable as well on other occasions you will find in sentences

where you are talking about loss and gain you are talking about both positive and negative when you are ta when you are creating a sort of comparison it is always better that you do so by putting the positive first and sending the negative towards the end as in this sentence

we feel we are missing some patients and therefore losing revenues by using this system i mean here you actually are talking about a loss because you are missing some patients but then in order to state you have to state this is a fact you have to state but in order

to state the same meaning if you simply change this order of words by saying we feel that by using this system we are missing some patients and therefore losing revenues you have not only changed the word order but you have also tried to establish meaning that is not only

logical but then meaning that is causal the meaning that is based in such a manner where the readers do not have to feel a sort of difficulty parallel construction we have talked about in previous lectures while discussing the outline of the report but again to give

you an example you know when a person uses a sentence and the sentence is longer which has got several parts care should be taken that the first part of the sentence and the second part of the sentence follow the same pattern so that we can say there is a sort

of parallel construction for example this book makes a good text you know this is this is this has actually ah been ah done in the bold to show you that makes the good text makes is ah at makes as a verb here for college students and the second

part of sentence you see and businessmen find it even more useful so you find that the second part begins with and businessman find it now if this sentence can be changed and in order to create a sort of unitedness if we can say this book is good as a college text and even

better as a means of enlarging their knowledge now you will find in any sentence if you use certain linking devices or or in any sentence you know as in speaking we shall discuss if in any sentence you are just trying to create a sort of sign post by sign post i mean transitions

i mean the reader should understand read ah because you know just in the beginning we have talked about the eye relief so the reader also waits for a sort of relief in terms of his ah flow of thoughts so for that if you ah simply create a word order

by providing some amou some sort of transitions the sentence will become readable otherwise the sentence will appear to be very breathless i mean longer sentences you see how long this sentence is and such sentences where readers cannot take a breath such a sentence becomes

a breathless now sentence now in breathless sentences breathless sentences will always be long so in order to know somebody who is a breathless what will you do you will actually try to give him some breathing space and in order

to give him some breathing space divide the sentence or split the sentence so split the breathless sentence as as in this sentence here you will find in this schedule are listed the events that will take place next month and also the time

in venue so that you can decide before and whether you like to take part in any of these event and if so inform the consent organizer who will enter your name in a list which he maintain for this purpose now even if i read i feel ah that there is no time to take breath

and if we do not take breath will we survive not at all so let us split the sentence and provide sometime for breath taking by changing this sentence dividing this sentence into two you know your main concern is to ensure or convey meaning and for that you can say

we are enclosing the next months event or calendar if interested kindly inform the concerned organizer now you know by dividing you have made it easier you have made it understandable in any sentence if there are so many verbs or

if there is a string of nouns as in the one that is there on your screen please revise the current group member meeting dates scheduling package format now you see how long is this lengthy noun string current group member meeting dates scheduling package format i mean this

will you know before the person tries to establish meaning ah he actually forgets so it is better to revise the sentence and say please revise the schedule package format of group members meetings this will allow to record visits for each group member individually

so when things become long cut them its better to say divide them life even will become better if there are several stations if there several signposts if there are transitions in life variety or change is the spice of life and you can bring variety and change by changing

the sentence order by splitting the breathless sentences and by revising the sentence for example you know especially information or subjects that are related to science now i have i have picked up one paragraph from ah you know scientific subject where when even

a person of the science reads it will find it very difficult but then you simply in the name of difficulty you cannot leave your task unfinished read the sentence read this paragraph and you will find it is very difficult it says it seems possible that the adrenergic

cholinergic antagonism may be mediated through the adenyl cyclase system it is known that whereas noradrenaline increases the synthesis of cyclic amp so likewise if you read it you will find this sentence this is not a paragraph but this is only one sentence and that is

why by the time you complete the reading of this sentence life could have been words so it is better to divide this sentence you know here punctuations are given but even these punctuations they do not appear to be providing relief now let us see the revised one here

you will find that the sentence has been divided and after dividing the sentence and making use of the pronouns ah you have made the task easier not only the sentence length has been reduced but the meaning also appears to flow so even a difficult subject or scientific

subject of complex nature can can become easier if you provide some relief by dividing the sentence by splitting the sentence there are some other examples of noun clusters by noun clusters i mean ah one part of the entire sentence will be full of nouns for

example ah let us have at look ah slide where if if we if we concentrate on the second one a value orientation aspect concerns not the meaning of the expected state of affairs to the actor in terms of his gratification depravation balance but the contents of the standards

themselves you see how the sentence is long and how there are several noun clusters let us you know if you want to break this excessive noun clustering what you will have to do is kick the noun habit and instead ah create the verb habit

for example the concept of value orientation in this sense is thus so here you have brought the verb auxiliary verb quite closer and by making use of thus and some other words you have made the task easier there are several ways of developing ah the paragraphs which

we have already discussed sometimes when you are writing the report and you are talking about the illustration ah there are several ways you can make your paragraph readable either by having a comparison and contrast method cause and effect method classification

method from one or several groups problem solution method and all so there are several ways you can may develop your paragraphs and but remember which we have been saying time and again that first is that the topic sentence should come

in a paragraph the topic sentence becomes the main sentence and the other sentences they are the coordinating or the subordinating sentences i mean they are some way or the other related to the main sentences with the help of connecting words sometimes with the

help of repetitions and sometimes with the help of pronouns but remember as i said you need to provide transitions these transitions alone can provide the eye relief and the mental relief as well so in order to provide transitions you should

know what sort of transitions are there because these transitions are ah signposts which actually help the reader move from one part two the another so say for example ah if we say addition when when you are saying one sentence and the other sentence you are also going to put

but then the other sentence is a sort of additional so in order to make it link you can make use of words like moreover furthermore beside besides finally know nonetheless however these are additional details sometimes you want to so relationship causal

relationship in such a case you are using hence therefore so this is to say fine thus consequently like this again sometimes you are showing the contrast and comparison you say while on the one hand ah delivering lecture through this online method is enjoying on

the other hand it is challenging but if it is challenging it is rewarding also because it covers a wider audience so this is how you can ensure a sort of coherence and you can also ensure a sort of meaning sometimes you also have to provide time sequence in

transitions and that is how you say ah whenever i say earlier i have talked on the traits of writing and now and tomorrow day after tomorrow i mean these are the time sequences later after while meanwhile sometimes you are repeating also and sometimes you are squeezing

also for example you say in short all i need to say is crave for simplicity and you crave for rewards so you repeat at times sometimes you say that is thus so these are all transitions make use of transitions depending upon your

content depending upon your subject but then your basic aim is to create a sort of readability now here i would like to focus what i mean by readability i mean a report that is written in a very smooth logical united coherent way becomes more readable i mean more people people

prefer to read that but then there is a readability formula which can also help you this readability formula was provided by robert gunning in the inn in nineteen fiftys of course with a changing ah times readability formula changes but all your need to ensure whether your ah

report is readable or not and how can you do that by understanding the difficulty level this difficulty level has been given based on a formula where you need to understand the number of sentences and this number of sentences and the number of difficult words

so you need to ah explore the percentage of difficult words and robert gunning says that there is a fog index this fog index is the percentage of difficult words plus the average sentence length if it is multiplied by zero point four and whatever result you get so

gunning says that if the result that you get is less than twelve meaning there by your writing is readable you know we write reports to be read we write reports for action so when we talk about reports which help in taking action we also add to ensure readability

my dear friends while discussing all the aspects of reports style and language i have tried my level best to ensure that when you write reports you actually follow a language that could be understood and interpreted because ultimately your report will lead to the solution

to a problem and in order to ensure readability please ensure ah be before you go to submit your report please ensured whether your sentences are short and long i mean a combination of short and long sentences whether your sentence

whether your paragraphs are united coherent whether you have made minimum use of difficult words or you have seen that the entire report is woven in such a systematic manner that they induce readers to read because ultimately style either for a business or functional

writing as george orwell said should be unobtrusive what i mean by unobtrusive is that people should not stop ah simply because a difficult world has crept in unobtrusive an invisible medium like a windowpane through which the information can be clearly seen

we do not want our reports simply to be seen but to be read to be understood and to be able to invite action or to take action if you follow the guidelines which we have discussed today i think we will be in a better position to write a report write reports because

a report as i have said in my earlier lecture also is the only tangible product of a professional hence care must be taken while writing and drafting reports thank you very much i wish you all a nice time and i also intend that you write better reports

thank you very much