Anne, Christian, et al.,
I teach writing in several disciplines and I agree with Christian that
it depends on the discipline and genre whether to use I/we or the
passive voice.
In business-related writing, for instance, using the passive voice
would seem very odd; also in literary analysis.
In "hard" sciences, however, using the passive voice is most often a
must. And also in most technical writing.
Thank you for raising this interesting question, Anne, and allowing us
this exchange of ideas and practices.
Auli
Quoting Christian Brösamle <[log in to unmask]>:
> Hello Anne,
>
> This is an interesting topic and I regularly get this asked in my
> seminars as well. I don't think there is right or wrong here.
>
> I usually answer by explaining, that the two positions (passive
> voice vs. we/I) reflect two ways to look at science. One is the
> idealistic, theoretical view that science is a purely logical,
> intellectual endeavour, where all insights should be independent of
> the experimentator and/or observer. Hence, everything personal
> should be left out (-> passive voice). The other view is, that
> science is a deeply human endeavour and therefore necessarily
> requires and reflects individual human properties such as creativity
> and interpretation (and also fallibilities). Therefore personal
> pronouns and active voice should be used.
>
> I then encourage the students to contemplate which parts of their
> work tend more towards the first and which towards the second view
> and find a balance in their writing (e.g. experimental protocol ->
> passive voice, hypothesis development ->active voice). I also ask
> them to consider the place where their work will be published (is it
> an oral presentation, a thesis, is there a style guide for the
> journal?).
>
> I could imagine that the approach to that question varies somewhat
> between disciplines. I teach mostly in the field of Biomedicine. Can
> anyone from other disciplines confirm that?
>
> I also observe that inexperienced students tend to prefer passive
> voice, perhaps to take themselves out of the line of fire, whereas
> more experienced scientists seem to feel more comfortable using
> active voice.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Christian Brösamle
>
> Am 21.09.15 um 15:05 schrieb Anne Wegner:
>> Dear colleagues
>> Two questions for you. I teach academic writing, mainly to PhD
>> students from difference scientific areas at various German
>> universities. One of the things I teach is that it is generally ok
>> to use ?we/I? in academic texts, while pointing out that its use
>> does slightly depend on the area in which one is working or the
>> journal for which one is writing. However, my daughter said that
>> during her recent Bachelor studies (Durham University, political
>> sciences), she was mainly writing, and being expected to write, in
>> the passive voice, avoiding we/I. I have two main questions related
>> to this:
>>
>> 1) Am I the only one getting my workshop participants to use we/I
>> in an English academic text? If so, I'd better stop!
>> 2) What do academic texts in other European languages generally
>> contain - we/I or passive voice? In a German academic text, the
>> use of we/I is generally frowned upon.
>>
>> I would appreciate any comments and am happy to put together a
>> summary of any answers I receive.
>>
>> Many thanks
>> Anne Wegner
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>
> --
> **************************************
> wtb wissenschaftliche texte brösamle
> Dr. sc. nat. Christian Brösamle
> www.wtb-science.de
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>
--
Dr. Auli Ek
Continuing Lecturer
Writing Program
University of California, Santa Barbara
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