: Re: Origin of Passive Voice or Third Person in scientific Writing I was reading a turkish translation of Robert A. Day , How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper. Foreword is written by A.

@Connie138

Vote Up Vote Down

I do not know the etymological or cultural roots of using the passive voice/ third person. However, the reason we were given [the reason they gave us], and that sounded to us as perfectly understandable, was that active voice unnecessarily [and undesirably] shifts the focus onto an extraneous element, at least in some instances.

Consider these: "An assignment was given." vs. "The professor gave us an assignment." If the discussion is about the assignment, the first form serves the purpose well, while the second one adds an irrelevant element of who gave the assignment.

However, the trend and tendency now is to actually avoid passive voice as much as one can.

(0)

Login to post a comment!