More important than the decision to express the verb in the active or the passive is the decision about what to place in subject position. Readers understand text more easily if writers locate their main characters in the subjects of their verbs and if these subjects are regularly repeated. This principle works both within and between sentences. The sentence below begins with Digital competence as the subject of the main clause but then repeats the concept in the subordinate clause not as the subject but as the object (it) of an active verb.


By changing the verb in the subordinate clause to the passive, we can keep digital competence in subject position and focus readers’ attention on one character.


The paragraph below introduces its main character, the psychoactive brew ayahuasca, as the subject of the first sentence.


The subject of the second sentence (Both ingredients) is familiar because it is the information introduced at the end of the first. However, the subject of the third sentence (more than 70 tribes) has not been mentioned before and it shifts the focus away from the main character of the paragraph, which appears as a pronoun in object position (it). By rewriting the sentence using the passive, we return the main character to subject position and improve coherence.


The two examples above use the passive not because it is intrinsically superior to the active but because it helps keep the focus on a particular character by placing it in subject position.