“Who farted?” The passive voice and grammatical and scientific inexactness
Johan Emerson Grobler
Copyeditor. Is your writing ready to make an impact in the world?
Do you love English? Wonderful! Here, every month, you can read about English usages, why literacy is a miracle, what copyediting is (this is what I do for a living), why we shouldn’t write only for our peers, how many errors are acceptable in a text, informal words, slang, what ‘yeet’ means, why we curse, the origin of the word ‘OK’, the international auxiliary language Esperanto, the 16 tenses, problem sentences, the nine parts of speech, French’s influence on English, setting time and word count goals in writing assignments, whether data is plural or singular, the classic style, the plain style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, prepositions, the active voice and the passive voice.
We can write sentences in one of two voices: active or passive. The active voice emphasises the agent: We have analysed the results. It is direct (performer-verb-receiver), vigorous, clear and concise; also, the reader knows who performed the action. The passive voice emphasises the receiver or the product of the action: The results have been analysed [by us]. It is indirect (receiver-verb-performer), awkward and wordy. If the by-phrase (here, ‘by us’) is omitted (the truncated passive), the reader is unclear who or what performed the action.
According to Sheffield, the active voice:
1, 2) Is shorter as well as direct and clear.
3) Does not lead to dangling modifiers, which lead to grammatical and scientific inexactness.
4) Does not sound pompous, clumsy, contorted or impersonal.
5) Does not lead to ambiguous actors. (The passive creates or increases actor ambiguity for readers, who will always get it wrong.)
6) Discourages abusive nominalisations. Unfortunately, “[w]e no longer sample, remove and inspect; we achieve, effect and carry out” (Kirkman, as cited in Sheffield).
7) Appropriately describes science, which is actively done by scientists.
8) Is preferred by almost every journal and style guide.
Yet, in some cases, the passive is fitting. Steven Pinker:
Often a writer needs to steer the reader’s attention away from the agent of an action. The passive allows him to do so because the agent can be left unmentioned, which is impossible in the active… Sometimes the omission is ethically questionable, as when the sidestepping politician admits only that “mistakes were made,” omitting… who made those mistakes. But sometimes the ability to omit an agent comes in handy because the minor characters in the story are a distraction… there is nothing wrong with a news report that uses the passive voice to say, “Helicopters were flown in to put out the fires.” The reader does not need to be informed that a guy named Bob was flying one of the helicopters. (as cited in Heath).
Unfortunately, many authors don’t know when to use the passive, and therefore use it unnecessarily and badly. Further, not all sentences can undergo passivisation. Harris: “... one cannot passivize a sentence like ‘John left the auditorium’ because John is not acting on the auditorium in a way that has consequences for it; but the sentence ‘John left the auditorium unguarded’ can be transformed into ‘The auditorium was left unguarded by John’… because John’s action affects the status of the auditorium” (4-5).
Here’s the dilemma: “The passive is not only acceptable but a necessary tool if a writer is to have complete control over the structuring of sentences” (Gopen, as cited in Sheffield); in other words, writers must have “complete control” of it. Some writers over-use the passive so as to avoid first-person pronouns. This is an extremely ambiguous form of the passive. While starting every sentence with ‘I or ‘We’ would be terrible, the active is not at fault – a repetitive and unvaried writing style is. To write “It is concluded that this process is effective” is hedging – a transparent attempt to evade the risk of commitment by leaving open a way of retreating. Why else would a writer or researcher deliberately diminish their findings, contributions or opinions?
As Stephen King writes: “With the passive voice, the writer usually expresses fear of not being taken seriously; it is the voice of little boys wearing shoe polish mustaches and little girls clumping around in Mommy’s high heels” (139). King again: “It’s weak, it’s circuitous, and it’s frequently tortuous, as well. How about this? My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man – who farted, right?” (137-8).
Some writers use the passive because it affects an ‘air’ or ‘feeling’ of logic. But, as Sheffield notes, the passive does not magically make results more valid. Objectivity is a quality that has no relationship to the passive. Authors should write naturally and economically, without trying to fake a ‘scientific style’. Passive sentences should be intentional rather than habitual.
The passive is a hangover from the 1920s
Considered ‘objective’, ‘impersonal’ and ‘well suited’ to writing for scientific and medical journals, according to Every, the passive was the standard style for many such publications for decades since the 1920s. But, in our post-factual era, can any scientist ever afford to write in the passive except when absolutely necessary? Especially in the methodology section, it is vital to delineate one’s own work from that of others. Watson and Crick’s well-known article starts as follows (as cited in Every): “We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.).” This sentence is simple, direct and clear. The passive would be: In this paper, a structure is suggested for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.).
Recommended by LinkedIn
What the AMA, APA and the journals require
The American Medical Association’s (AMA) Manual of style (2007) recommends that “in general, authors should use the active voice, except in instances in which the author is unknown or the interest focuses on what is acted upon” (as cited in Every). The American Psychological Association’s (APA) Publication manual (2009) also recommends the active. The vast majority of academic journals require or prefer the active. Despite this, some EU universities still stubbornly demand that authors wholly eliminate the use of ‘I’ and ‘we’ from papers and theses.
If you’re unsure about the requirements of the journal you’re submitting to, simply find its author guidelines and one or two example papers on its website.
About
Johan Emerson Grobler has been editing academic and related work since 2007.
When he edits, he takes responsibility for the text, as if he were the co-author. Most of what he does is a blend of copyediting, line editing and proofreading. That is, he assembles words into hard-working sentences that can be inhaled like ice cream.
A great edit can be the difference between approval or rejection, resources allocated or denied, a sale or no sale, and a cum laude or a summa cum laude.
A member of Professional Editors’ Guild (member number GRO 007), Johan has assisted authors to successfully submit papers to at least 81 journals.
Sources
Nathan Sheffield: Passive voice in scientific writing.
Stephen King: On writing: A memoir of the craft. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2000.
Steven Pinker: The sense of style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century. Penguin, 2014.
Christian Heath: The sense of style: A pro SAT & ACT tutor’s book review. 15 February 2018.
Catherine L. Harris: Language and cognition. Galley of article.