How to Effectively Use Active and Passive Voice in Academic Writing
A passive sentence is a sentence where the object is being acted on and an active sentence is where the subject is the one doing the acting. During the 20th century, the passive voice was dominating scientific writing because it sounded more formal while now there is a shift towards using more of the active language instead. APA roots for the active voice in order to add clarity and conciseness as well. The general opinion is that the passive voice makes the writing flat and boring while active engages the reader and makes them more interested in the topic at hand. For this purpose, more and more scientists are now using a mixture of passive and active writing, both to the effect of making their papers more clear and entertaining for the readers.
It’s interesting that in the past, before the 20th century, people actually preferred and used the active voice and it became favored at the turn of the century. Passive voice obscured the agents in the actions and readers could lose any sight of relevance when the prose is dominated by things and objects rather than people.
But polarised views on a subject are irrelevant in the writing world and especially in science because both voice types can be used in a scientific paper, depending on the context of it.
The APA recommends that we should use verb tenses and voices carefully. Don’t be reluctant to use the active voice, especially in the discussion section since this is where it’s very important to emphasize who you are and where you stand as a scientist.
When writing the methods section, it can be a good idea to break the passive sentences with active statements. A passive voice is used in science as a way to describe a process that would otherwise be difficult to describe while active voice should be used to describe actions as the very name of it says.
You should generally start by describing the active doers in an active voice and then move on to construct sentences concisely with passive voice if appropriate. Throw in a few sentences inactive in order to break the dullness.
The active voice should be heavily used in the introduction section of your paper. This is where you discuss previous research an introduce your own so it’s a good idea to be as engaging and active as you can. The active voice refers to a sentence format and it emphasizes the agents of the action rather than the object of the action. Passive voice gives everything an impersonal tone which can come off as too formal in today’s world and make readers lose interest but in some cases, specifically with scientific papers, it’s a great addition because this kind of professional writing often means authenticity.
Use these voices by using common sense because that’s the only way to actually create the best possible flow for your document.
