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I am using a proofreading plugin for Wordpress and it says that I should not use passive voice (the selected parts) in the following phrase. How can I rephrase this to use active voice?

The invalid profile is discarded and a new fresh profile is created.

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    This is the kind of sentence passive voice was made for. Ignore Wordpress. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 4:41
  • Hello Alex V, and Welcome to EL&U. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 4:58
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    Susan should get the 'Welcoming Smile' hat. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 7:29

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I would say that unless you can add a subject

The system discards the invalid profile and creates a new fresh profile.

The moderator discards the invalid profile and creates a new fresh profile.

then the passive here works fine, because the only construction(s) I could formulate would be clunkier:

The invalid profiles undergoes deletion and the creation of a new fresh profile takes place.

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    And even if you can add a subject, you should only do it if it improves the writing, which in this case I think is very unlikely. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 4:43
  • Passive smoking is the one to avoid. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 7:18
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    Apparently, 'works finely' is an allowable form of the far more common 'works fine' (my edit here), but I'd say it's hardly idiomatic English. Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 7:26

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