Copyediting sample 9:
The road was clogged

Growing up in American schools, students are often taught that they should avoid the passive voice. There are times, however, when passive is preferable, and one of those times is to improve coherence (given information before new information) and emphasis.

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Original
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I left Dubuque and drove east. Ashley invited me to her home, which is about ten miles outside of Galena in a secluded hollow. At Galena, the highway passes by a few strip malls before descending into the valley of the Galena River and into the red brick architecture of the old city. I had plenty of time to check out the buildings as I crawled down Highway 20. On summer weekends, packs of motorcycles, RVs, and confused tourists vying for parking spots clog the road.

Markup
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I left Dubuque and drove east. Ashley invited me to her home, which is about which was about ten miles outside of Galena in a secluded hollow. At Galena, the highway passes by highway passed by a few strip malls before descending into the valley of the Galena River and into the red brick architecture of the old city. I had plenty of time to check out the buildings as I crawled down Highway 20. On summer weekends, packs of motorcycles weekends, the road was clogged by packs of motorcycles, RVs, and confused tourists vying for parking spots clog the road. spots. [The passive voice (“was clogged” in this case) has a deserved bad reputation for its abstracting, alienating overuse in academic and other institutional writing, but there are many instances where the passive is the better choice—and one instance is here, to improve Aristotelian coherence and emphasis. Coherence means that given information (information already known) should generally precede new information. “Highway 20” is new information in the fourth sentence of this sample, so its appositive, “the road,” is given information in the ensuing, fifth sentence and therefore should be close to the beginning of that sentence. The items that “clog” constitute new information in the fifth sentence and should therefore come afterward (note that they are the ones identified, with the preposition “by,” as the agent of the “clogging” action). Also, the phrase “vying for parking spots” is more emphatic than the phrase “the road,” and the end of the sentence (or paragraph or chapter) is generally where the greatest emphasis belongs. Trying to place that phrase at the end of the active-version fifth sentence would have been awkward.]

Result
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I left Dubuque and drove east. Ashley invited me to her home, which was about ten miles outside of Galena in a secluded hollow. At Galena, the highway passed by a few strip malls before descending into the valley of the Galena River and into the red brick architecture of the old city. I had plenty of time to check out the buildings as I crawled down Highway 20. On summer weekends, the road was clogged by packs of motorcycles, RVs, and confused tourists vying for parking spots.