Dear Tamer,

thank you for sharing this article with us. It's an interesting issue, and a persistent one. I've done a bit of tinkering in your margins, because you asked (see attachment). But in addition to corrections, I wonder if you'd be interested in adding something about why the passive has been preferred in scientific writing until recently? If people are thinking about which voice to use in this context, they'd probably make a more informed choice if they understand why the passive is commonly considered appropriate.

My understanding is that the passive is used because in scientific work it is not supposed to be important to know who is doing the actions described; what is important is what IS DONE (passive) -- chemicals are mixed, compounds are heated, quantities are measured, reactions are observed, etc. The focus is on the materials used and the processes they undergo. To foreground the researcher by using the active voice ("I mixed/ heated/ measured/ observed") is irrelevant, and even counter to the culture of scientific writing because it introduces the possibility of subjectivity into the research. The use of passive voice gives the impression of objectivity, which is important in scientific work even if the reality has been otherwise.  (The typical structure of scientific articles complies with this principle of objectivity too, by presenting the findings before discussing what they mean, to give the impression that the researchers didn't allow questions of meaning to enter their mind until they had all the facts, which cannot often be the case; and indeed, when scientists tell their colleagues about their work, in seminars, they do it as a narrative in which purpose, discovery, and interpretation are intertwined as they are in reality -- but when they write, it's in the I(ntroduction)M(ethod)R(esults)D(iscussion) format.) 

In fact, I don't think there's anything inherently confusing or obscure about the passive voice. It can be used to avoid saying who is responsible for the actions described, and this is why plain language campaigners object to its use by politicians and others who are seeking to fudge who did what. But even George Orwell, in "Politics and the English language", didn't manage to avoid the passive even while ranting against it; on the same page where he gives the rule "Never use the passive where you can use the active", he asserts that "Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable". Similarly, experts who offer advice on the issue often -- apparently quite unconsciously -- write sentences like "The passive should be avoided". And it shouldn't be avoided, but used when it is the more suitable voice for what the writer wants to communicate (as in Orwell's sentence, and much scientific writing). It can be just as "plain" as the active voice, when used appropriately.

I have the impression that the near-consensus in favour of the active voice in manuals on good writing is a cultural preference that has come to dominate writers in English because the authors of those manuals come from a humanities or literary background, often American, that valorizes individual consciousness and activity. So the choice of active or passive voice is quite complex, I think, not only a matter of whether to stick with convention or adopt more modern trends. Thank you for stimulating me to think about this on paper!

Best wishes,

Kate