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I get a lot of papers to proofread that are written in the passive voice. What does this mean? If you write without personal pronouns (I, we, us) then you are likely using the passive voice. Your sentences will look something like “The data were collected in spring each year”. If you are using the active voice then that same sentence will look like “We collected data in the spring of each year”.
Technically, there is nothing wrong with either of these sentences. The passive voice sentence is one word shorter, which counts in scientific papers. And both sentences are clear. The active voice, however, makes it explicit that the work was done by the authors. This is somewhat less clear. It is possible that another, third party, collected the data. Maybe.
Way back when, the passive voice was considered the standard for scientific papers. It was seen as being more objective, more detached. More scientific. However, in modern use, the active voice is more popular and journal “instructions to authors” will often state that the active voice is preferred.
In reality, you can mix it up. There is no hard-and-fast rule that says that you have to stick to one voice in a paper. I personally prefer the active voice. But I also let active and passive voice mingle in the same paper. It’s a matter of personal preference.
John @ ProofreadCanada