Scientific Research Writing Tips: Effective use of Passive Voice

“The simplest and cheapest of all reforms within institutional science is to switch from the passive to the active voice in writing about science.”

— Rupert Sheldrake

Darwin used active voice to write Origin of species during the 18th century.    Now, after more than one and a half-century, active voice has become the favorite for writing scientific manuscripts. It had gone through a full circle when the passive voice in writing was preferred during the 19th century.  Active or passive, the structure of the sentence and its connection to the next is vital. Hence, a combination of both active and passive voice is best at all times.

Active-passive-active verbs in scientific writing in the 19th century:

The active voice used in the 18th century was changed to passive voice writing until recently.  The use of “I” and “we” was not encouraged during this period. But again, active voice has become the norm and most preferred by authors of scientific manuscripts. Also, many multidisciplinary SCI-indexed journals and specialist journals instruct their authors to write in the active voice. 

Nature Journals prefer authors to write in the active voice (“we performed the experiment……..”) as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly

– Nature Journal

The reasons for using passive verbs (voice) in scientific manuscripts:

  1. Injects objectivity into scientific manuscripts:

The primary reason for using passive verbs in scientific manuscripts is due to the act that it injects objectivity into a research paper.  Scientific objectivity is a characteristic of scientific claims, methods, and its results.  It expresses their ideas should not be influenced by relevant factors which include among others:

  • Particular perspective
  • Value commitments
  • Community bias
  • Personal interests

Using passive voice will avoid using the first person by replacing them with the pronouns like ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘us’, ‘my’ or ‘our’. In other words, in passive sentences, the authors of manuscripts feel that they do not have to identify the one doing the action. 

But in reality, scientific objectivity has got nothing to do with passive verbs. It is because passive verbs have nothing to do with pronoun usage. Besides, authors had noted several potential shortcomings of passive-voice writing, including uncertainty about the agent (1) change of meaning (2), stilted language (3).

  1. It has been found by experiment that …
  2. I do not accept the idea ≠ the idea cannot be accepted
  3. It is strongly considered that …. (instead of ‘I firmly belied/consider that….’)

 Even active sentences like passive sentences can be written in the first person.  It is also true that active verbs need not use the first person.