It was then decided active verbs are better!

Chip Scanlon scores a 10 out 10 with this column.

I don't know about the rest of you but I often spend a great deal of time explaining to my students the importance of active verbs. (Granted the journalism students are often better at this than PR and government students.)

I still recall a time when I edited reports for the US Embassy in Mexico City. I would often turn 4-8 pages of text into 2-3 pages by just replacing the passive structure with active verbs. (Now, thankfully, many supervisors in the State Dept. also believe in active verbs.)

Cheers

Dan