The Passive Voice
In field of research, expressing a truth which is based on the research via textual communication is a primary obligation. Thus, a science author's primary obligation is to convey information clearly, concisely, and objectively. On the other hand, a good idea is delivered in a simple expression within the sentence, which implies directly to the purpose. A clear writing promotes clear thinking for both the writer and the reader. Simple, straightforward writing should be the goal of every science writer. Direct, action verbs are usually better than flabby verbs of being, whatever the choice.
Before we further discuss, lets have a review first about what is the difference of active and passive voice. Have a look a picture below:
Active voice: the subject of the sentence performs the action - or the subject acts
Passive voice: it means that we don't really care about the person. Use passive voice when the doer of the action is unknown or not important
So, from these two brief explanations, a simple difference between active and passive lies on action of the subject.
Conclusively, it is not merely about changing the position of subject into object or vice versa.
Now, from the picture, try to answer these three questions below:
- What is the action?
- Who does the action?
- What is the object that being performed by the action?
The answers of these three questions respectively are taking/ collecting, a scientist/ a person, a bottle of blood sample/ bottles of blood sample.
The active voice which concerns about the subject in doing the action, then the expression is:
A scientist collects a bottle of blood samples --- (Subject + Verb)
However, for the passive voice, in which we have no concern on who take the bottles focuses on the action. The passive voice is influence by the quantities of the noun, by which the understanding of countable and uncountable noun are important. It is necessary due to the presence of to be in formulating the passive voice (is, am, are and was, were)
Subject + To Be + P3
How many bottles? A bottle or Bottles
What is the verb? Take - Took - Taken
Who are the performer/ doer? A scientist
Furthermore, there are two functions of using passive voices:
(1) We use a passive verb to say who or what causes the action is often unknown or unimportant:
A bottle of blood sample is taken
this means that, somebody took the blood sample, but we do not know who. This also means, the writing clearly focuses on the action.
(2) We use the passive verb to say what happens to the subject:
Bottles of blood sample are taken by the scientist
Note that, in the second sentence, the word "by the scientist" is clearly written which shows particular purpose of informing the doer.
However, academic writing has traditionally been third person, as the writing only focuses on:
- The Action
- The Methods (as it has been performed, it should be in past tenses except for certain reasons)
- The Results
So, use passive voice when it is needed, where? If you want to show the readers about the research action and results (method and data). Have a look an active and passive sentence below
General dysfunction of the immune system at the leukocyte level is suggested by both animal and human studies
Who did the suggestion? General dysfunction or the studies?
Both human and animal studies suggest that diabetics have general immune dysfunction at the leukocyte level
Who did the suggestion? General dysfunction or the studies?
Conclusion
Use effectively and efficiently of both active and passive voice during the speaking or writing. Remember, use
passive if you want to express the
methods (steps)
and results or data, and use
active voice if you want to explain without ambiguity. For further pdf material, it is freely available on the following link
[PDF Material].
