“After all, human agents are responsible for designing experiments…writing awkward phrases to avoid admitting their responsibility and their presence is an odd way of being objective.”
- Jane J. Robinson
A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.
Contrary to some writers’ opinion, the passive voice is not an error in terms of grammar but a stylistic issue pertaining to clarity: there are times when using it can prevent your reader from understanding what you mean. The general opinion is that the passive voice makes writing flat and insinuates evasion of responsibility in writing of any form, not just scientific writing. Besides, writers who overuse the passive voice may have not fully thought through what they are discussing, which makes for imprecise arguments.
Consider the following example:
“Although Penelope shares heroic characteristics with her husband, Odysseus, she is not considered a hero.”
Who does not consider Penelope a hero? It could be the writer him-/herself (evading responsibility for his/her opinion), but it could equally be the critics (imprecise argument – we don’t even know which ones) or even the readership in general. Sure, it may be perfectly clear to the writer when he/she composes a sentence like that, but since most readers have not mastered long-distance telepathy yet, they cannot fully appreciate the writer’s idea.
Here’s a few more examples:
“It is argued that method A yields the best results.” - Who argues this point?
“A new system of data processing has been suggested.” - Who has suggested it?
“Women were not treated as equals.”
“African Americans were discriminated against.”
“The working class was marginalized.”
None of these three sentences make for precise arguments or have proper connection to the context. By context here I mean the systems, conditions, human decisions, and contradictions that caused such oppression. If the reader learns nothing about the agent of the action (who or what caused those bad things to happen), he/she will doubt the writer’s understanding of the topic he/she’s dealing with.
And here’s where the editor comes forward and saves these claims by making them active. How should you do that? Easy, just follow these three steps:
1. Spot the passive voice. Tips: look for any forms of the verb “to be” (is, are, was, have been, will be, being, etc.) followed by a part participle (a verb typically ending in “-ed” or an irregular past participle such as “bought,” “paid,” “shot,” etc.).
Basically, this is the formula you’re looking for:
Another way to recognize passive voice is to ask yourself: 1. if there is any action going on in the sentence; and 2. if the person or thing who does that action is somewhere at the beginning of the sentence – before the verb. Hint: if it is not and the object (the thing being acted upon) takes its position, the sentence is prooobably passive. Well, it’s definitely passive.
2. Identify the agent (doer) of the action – who is actually doing it? There are three possible cases here:
a) the doer may be lagging behind somewhere after the verb in an awkward “by X” structure:
“At the time of the accident, the car was being driven by Liam.”
As I’ve mentioned earlier, in a passive structure, the action is more important than the person/thing who does it. See how by making the sentence passive the writer subtly shifts the blame from Liam. I bet the guy was DUI too! Don’t let him escape the punishment and make the sentence active!
b) the doer may be missing altogether:
“Research has been done to prove this hypothesis.”
In this sentence, we have no idea who did the research, but in our field of work, it is pretty important. Apparently, the writer is trying to hide some hole in his/her research, so we’d better help him out: make this sentence active and say who is the doer of the research. I mean the action. Whatever.
c) the doer is not present in the sentence but it is clear from either the previous sentence or the context:
“Professor X conducted a similar study in 1979. The effect of the X-factor on human subjects was investigated under various conditions.”
The passive voice sentence does not even mention Professor X, but since we have read about him earlier, we know he was the guy doing that dubious study. Got you there, Professor! Oh well, credit where credit’s due - let’s make the sentence active.
3. Rewrite the sentence so that its subject is performing the action.
In most cases, you can just switch the word order, making the actor and subject one by putting the doer of the action up front:
“At the time of the accident, Liam was driving the car.”
Sometimes you may find that need to do some extra research or thinking to figure out who the actor should be:
“Researchers X, Y, and Z have conducted a study to prove this hypothesis.”
For bonus points, you will likely find that your new sentence is stronger, shorter, and more precise:
“Similarly, in 1979, Professor X investigated the effect of the X-factor on human subjects under various conditions.”
While passive voice can weaken the clarity of your writing, there are times when it is perfectly OK or even preferable. In academic writing, passive voice is used to describe a process, the results of study, or similar material which is objective in nature, but active voice is used to describe actions. For example, passive voice is useful in the Methods section of a dissertation, where the steps taken by a researcher (see what I did there?) are more important than the researcher him-/herself.
In any case, your guiding principle should be clarity: you should think about what information the target reader is looking for and choose the active voice or the passive voice, whichever will make the text most clear and comprehensible.
On a side note, sentences in active voice tend to be more concise than those in passive voice because fewer words are required to express action in active voice than in passive. Making the text less wordy will be the next topic of this blog: “Awkwardness, Pt. 3: Wordiness.”
Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts under this post!
And here’s where the editor comes forward and saves these claims by making them active. How should you do that? Easy, just follow these three steps:
1. Spot the passive voice. Tips: look for any forms of the verb “to be” (is, are, was, have been, will be, being, etc.) followed by a part participle (a verb typically ending in “-ed” or an irregular past participle such as “bought,” “paid,” “shot,” etc.).
Basically, this is the formula you’re looking for:
a form of “to be” + past participle = passive voice
2. Identify the agent (doer) of the action – who is actually doing it? There are three possible cases here:
a) the doer may be lagging behind somewhere after the verb in an awkward “by X” structure:
“At the time of the accident, the car was being driven by Liam.”
As I’ve mentioned earlier, in a passive structure, the action is more important than the person/thing who does it. See how by making the sentence passive the writer subtly shifts the blame from Liam. I bet the guy was DUI too! Don’t let him escape the punishment and make the sentence active!
b) the doer may be missing altogether:
“Research has been done to prove this hypothesis.”
In this sentence, we have no idea who did the research, but in our field of work, it is pretty important. Apparently, the writer is trying to hide some hole in his/her research, so we’d better help him out: make this sentence active and say who is the doer of the research. I mean the action. Whatever.
c) the doer is not present in the sentence but it is clear from either the previous sentence or the context:
“Professor X conducted a similar study in 1979. The effect of the X-factor on human subjects was investigated under various conditions.”
The passive voice sentence does not even mention Professor X, but since we have read about him earlier, we know he was the guy doing that dubious study. Got you there, Professor! Oh well, credit where credit’s due - let’s make the sentence active.
3. Rewrite the sentence so that its subject is performing the action.
In most cases, you can just switch the word order, making the actor and subject one by putting the doer of the action up front:
“At the time of the accident, Liam was driving the car.”
Sometimes you may find that need to do some extra research or thinking to figure out who the actor should be:
“Researchers X, Y, and Z have conducted a study to prove this hypothesis.”
For bonus points, you will likely find that your new sentence is stronger, shorter, and more precise:
“Similarly, in 1979, Professor X investigated the effect of the X-factor on human subjects under various conditions.”
While passive voice can weaken the clarity of your writing, there are times when it is perfectly OK or even preferable. In academic writing, passive voice is used to describe a process, the results of study, or similar material which is objective in nature, but active voice is used to describe actions. For example, passive voice is useful in the Methods section of a dissertation, where the steps taken by a researcher (see what I did there?) are more important than the researcher him-/herself.
In any case, your guiding principle should be clarity: you should think about what information the target reader is looking for and choose the active voice or the passive voice, whichever will make the text most clear and comprehensible.
On a side note, sentences in active voice tend to be more concise than those in passive voice because fewer words are required to express action in active voice than in passive. Making the text less wordy will be the next topic of this blog: “Awkwardness, Pt. 3: Wordiness.”
Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts under this post!
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