First, I am not sure about 'It was broken' being classified as active. It feels like the sentence fits the passive and the active. For 'be', 'He will be discharged'. A formal declarative statement of a neutral process. For 'get', 'He got shafted'. A statement describing an unpleasant outcome, the subject of the verb suffered. This also suggests the finality of the outcome. The verb 'get' is also a sense of effort...'He got released' We also use 'get + passive' informally: 'I got my hair cut'. For have: 'I had my hair cut' just sounds more formal, but to me this really focusses on the organisation I did in terms of checking calendar, booking the appointment and talking to the hairdresser. It also feels more like 'I put things in place so that a barber cut my hair'. In the situation of a regular haircut, no one would say 'My hair is being/will be cut'.

1. Using passive for intransitive verbs, eg. 'The patient was presented'... for 'The patient presented' 2. Overusing the present participle, eg. 'The patient is being sectioned three times over the last year'. 3. Difficulty understanding the meaning of different aspects, eg. 'The patient is being admitted' might refer to the moment of speech AND a future plan. 4. Simplifying 5. Having a range of verbs so the choice of active or passive is even possible. 6. Avoiding very long sentences. 7. When I used to correct technical papers written by Japanese authors, the overuse of the passive was an utter nightmare because I could not guess what was intended. Now with medical letters, the intended meaning is clearer or easier to intuit.

Extract 1: Even though education is free, many students drop out. This trend can be explained by looking at a recent study which found that students have become more interested in self-employment. The survey participants felt that the internet has made it possible to gain knowledge without being in class. Similarly, when asked about their future, the dropouts mentioned that they had already started their own online companies. Extract one's topic sentence ends with the surprising fact of students dropping out. The theme started as 'free education' and the comment was 'dropping out'. The subordination of 'education is free' with 'even though' leads the reader to expect a twist. The conjunction 'even though' implicitly signals that the writer believes that free access is an important factor in continuing education. The sentence would still work grammatically if it said 'Even though education is expensive, people drop out' and the writer then continued 'The average course costs over $200 k over four years, but many students leave in the first year because they cannot keep up with the course requirements...'. This sentence would flow from the assumption 'Failure to finish an expensive courses is a waste of money' However, the writer develops the argument along the premise that free education is likely to be completed in the absence of other variables. One variable is chance to learn independently. The second is the opportunity cost of spending time in school when that time could be spent earning. The third sentence about learning independently does not really flow well with the topics of the cost and interest in self study because the second talked about self employment. The writer had not raised the topic of perceived non-monetary benefits of education. Basically: 'many students drop out' becomes the new topic of the subject of the second sentence 'This trend'. However, 'Even though education is free...' is not a great topic sentence for the entire paragraph because it asks the reader to buy into the trade-off between free education and students' motivation to complete their courses.

Sentence 1: The survey was administered to the students. They anonymously submitted their answers. The first sentence ends with the prepositional phrase 'to the students', which is additional information to 'The survey was administered' in the passive. By ending the sentence with 'students' the reader is set up to then have a new theme, 'the people' which is repeated with 'they'. The theme starts with 'survey' then moves to 'the comment, eg. the anonymity of the participants. More generally, I can imagine these sentences: The students anonymously submitted their answers to the survey. The student answers to the survey were anonymous. The survey was answered anonymously by a group of students. Also, I suggest that to capture the connection between the mention of students and anonymity, there needs to be something about the sample. 'The survey was administered to students from (three/ten/a hundred) different (ethnic/socio-economic groups/educational institutions). They answered the questions anonymously. We do not always need to follow the theme and reme or 'content then comment'. Sometimes parallel structure can highlight connections. 🖖 Sentence 2: The students completed the survey. It consisted of ten True/False questions and took 10 minutes to complete. Here the active structure of the first sentence ends with 'survey' or the object of the verb 'complete'. Then the noun 'survey' becomes 'it' and there are a couple of active verbs. We could tell students that the proximity of survey and it leads from the topic of students to the topic of the survey. The focus here is on the survey in both sentences. We cannot say 'which consisted of ten True/False questions...' as this would imply the students consisted of questions. Just out of interest, Grammarly kindly suggested this rewrite: A group of students anonymously completed a ten-minute survey with ten True/False questions. --- I mention this because I often tell my students not to include redundant information as follows:

The song was written by Leo. The song was written (in 2024 / in Brazil / in the depths of despair/ in spite of his friend's protests) The song was written (for his son / for $20 / for a joke / for a bet) The song was written (in order to win the Eurovision Song Contest / in order to pay off his debts / in order to clear his head) The song was written (from a dark place / from the point of view of a samba dancer / from his heart / from a song he'd sung as a child)