Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Layout of the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Problem: the illness
- Part II Solution: symptomatic relief
- 4 Technology, changing language and authority
- 5 Guidelines to clearer writing
- 6 Spelling
- 7 Is there a better word?
- 8 Superfluous words
- 9 Imprecise words
- 10 Superfluous phrases
- 11 Trouble with short words
- 12 Use of the passive voice
- 13 Consistency: number and tenses
- 14 Word order
- 15 Punctuation
- 16 Circumlocution
- 17 Words and parts of speech for EAL writers
- 18 Clichés and article titles
- 19 Constructing sentences
- 20 Further help with sentences for EAL writers
- 21 Drawing clear graphs
- 22 It can be done
- Part III Practice: recuperation
- Appendix British–American English
- References and further reading
- Index
12 - Use of the passive voice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Layout of the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Problem: the illness
- Part II Solution: symptomatic relief
- 4 Technology, changing language and authority
- 5 Guidelines to clearer writing
- 6 Spelling
- 7 Is there a better word?
- 8 Superfluous words
- 9 Imprecise words
- 10 Superfluous phrases
- 11 Trouble with short words
- 12 Use of the passive voice
- 13 Consistency: number and tenses
- 14 Word order
- 15 Punctuation
- 16 Circumlocution
- 17 Words and parts of speech for EAL writers
- 18 Clichés and article titles
- 19 Constructing sentences
- 20 Further help with sentences for EAL writers
- 21 Drawing clear graphs
- 22 It can be done
- Part III Practice: recuperation
- Appendix British–American English
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
A man of true science . . . uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science . . . thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
(Herman Melville, 1819–1891, American novelist, essayist and poet. White jacket, 1850.)Using the active, we write, ‘He made the incision . . .’; using the passive, ‘The incision was made . . .’. An established but not absolute convention was for all scientific writing to be in the passive voice: ‘Nor need we be deceived by the impersonal passive voice in which such messages are conventionally cast . . . The fundamental principle of scientific observation is that all human beings are interchangeable as observers.’
Unfortunately, this allegedly fundamental principle (which is increasingly open to question) also makes scientific writing ugly and unwieldy. It is to some extent a matter of fashion, but fashion is now turning against the passive.
When the passive voice is used, the writers take a back seat, as if they had watched the study from a distance: It was decided to; three measurements were taken. The passive forces constructions such as It was necessary to and This necessitated instead of We had to. Medical writers may be reluctant to use the active voice because of a fear that the first person sounds somehow immodest. Used sensibly it does not, but it does lend a paper a directness that gives readers the sense that the writers actually did the work, or hold the opinions, that they describe.
We discussed the therapeutic potential of fish oil in an editorial last year.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Medical WritingA Prescription for Clarity, pp. 221 - 225Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014