Sainani SciWrite 2.1

Summary

In this lecture from Week Two of Writing in the Sciences, Kristin Sainani from Stanford University focuses on improving scientific writing by emphasizing the use of the active voice over the passive. She explains the structure of the active voice (subject, verb, object) and contrasts it with the passive voice, which can obscure responsibility. Sainani provides examples and techniques to identify and convert passive sentences into active ones, promoting clarity and directness in scientific communication.

Takeaways

• 📝 **Active Voice Importance**: The lecture emphasizes the use of the active voice over the passive voice in scientific writing for clarity and directness.
• 🔄 **Active Voice Structure**: The active voice follows the 'subject-verb-object' format, which is more natural and direct compared to the passive voice.
• 📉 **Passive Voice Issues**: The passive voice can make sentences awkward and obscure responsibility, which is why it's often avoided in effective writing.
• 🔍 **Recognizing Passive Voice**: Passive voice sentences can be identified by the structure 'object-verb-subject' or by the presence of a 'to-be' verb followed by a past tense verb.
• 👉 **Transforming Passive to Active**: To convert passive voice sentences to active, identify the true subject and rearrange the sentence to 'subject-verb-object'.
• ✏️ **Editing for Clarity**: The active voice often requires specificity and can lead to more concise writing by eliminating unnecessary words.
• 🤔 **Subject Identification**: In cases where the passive voice omits the subject, the author or researchers are often implied and should be considered when converting to active voice.
• 📚 **Resource Recommendation**: 'The Elements of Style' by Strunk and White is recommended for further reading on writing style and principles.
• 🔗 **Cause and Effect**: The active voice correctly orders cause and effect, making it easier to follow the logic of scientific descriptions.
• ✂️ **Cutting Clutter**: Using the active voice can help cut down on wordiness, as it often requires more direct language and avoids unnecessary phrases.

Q & A

What are the three key principles of effective writing mentioned in the script?

The script discusses the latter two principles of the three key principles of effective writing: 1) Use of the active voice, and 2) Writing with strong verbs, avoiding turning verbs into nouns, and keeping the main verb close to the subject at the beginning of the sentence.

What is the active voice and how is it structured?

The active voice follows the format subject, verb, object, which is the natural way we talk and write. It can sometimes be just subject, verb without an object.

How does the passive voice differ from the active voice?

The passive voice inverts the structure of the active voice, often placing the object before the verb and the subject, or sometimes just the object and verb without the subject.

What is a mantra suggested to remember when writing in the active voice?

The suggested mantra to remember when writing in the active voice is 'subject, verb, object, subject, verb, object' to reinforce the natural writing structure.

Why is the passive voice considered awkward in both speaking and writing?

The passive voice is considered awkward because it inverts the natural speech pattern and can obscure the subject or responsible party, making sentences sound unnatural and less direct.

How can you identify a passive verb in a sentence?

A passive verb can be identified by looking for a form of the verb 'to be' (is, was, were, be, been, am) connected to the past tense of a main verb that takes an object.

What is an example of a passive voice sentence and how can it be converted to active voice?

A passive voice sentence example is 'Mistakes were made.' To convert it to active voice, it would be 'We made mistakes.' or specify the subject responsible for the action.

Why might someone use the passive voice in academic or scientific writing?

The passive voice might be used in academic or scientific writing to de-emphasize the subject or responsible party, to maintain objectivity, or to adhere to certain stylistic conventions.

How does the active voice help in making a sentence more direct and clear?

The active voice helps make sentences more direct and clear by clearly identifying the subject performing the action, which can lead to shorter sentences with fewer unnecessary words.

What is one strategy to turn a passive voice sentence into active voice?

One strategy to turn a passive voice sentence into active voice is to ask 'who does what to whom?' and then restructure the sentence to have the subject performing the action (verb) on the object.

Can you provide an example from the script where the active voice makes a sentence more concise?

Yes, the script provides an example where the passive voice sentence 'The activation of Calcium channels is induced by the depletion of endoplasmic reticular calcium stores' is made more concise in the active voice as 'Depleting calcium from the endoplasmic reticulum activates calcium channels.'

Outlines

00:00

📝 Active Voice in Scientific Writing

The paragraph introduces the second week of a writing course focused on the sciences, led by Kristin Sainani from Stanford University. It emphasizes the importance of using the active voice in writing, contrasting it with the passive voice. The active voice follows the 'subject-verb-object' format, which is more natural and direct. The passive voice, which can be identified by the structure 'object-verb-subject' or by the presence of a 'to-be' verb followed by a past tense verb, often leads to awkward and unclear sentences. The paragraph provides examples of how to convert passive sentences into active ones, highlighting the clarity and directness gained through this process.

05:01

🔄 Converting Passive to Active Voice

This paragraph delves deeper into the practice of converting sentences from passive to active voice. It provides examples from 'The Elements of Style' by Strunk and White, illustrating how passive sentences can be awkward and unclear. The paragraph explains the process of identifying the object, verb, and subject in a passive sentence and then rearranging them into the active voice. It also discusses the importance of being specific and direct when writing in the active voice, which can help to eliminate unnecessary words and improve readability.

10:01

🔎 Recognizing and Revising Passive Voice

The paragraph continues the discussion on the passive voice, showing how it can obscure responsibility and make sentences less direct. It provides more examples of sentences in passive voice and demonstrates how to revise them into active voice. The process involves identifying the missing subject and reordering the sentence to place the subject before the verb and object. The paragraph also points out that using the active voice can lead to more concise writing by eliminating redundant verbs and nouns.

15:02

⚖️ The Impact of Voice on Readability

The final paragraph of the script summarizes the importance of using the active voice for clarity and directness in scientific writing. It contrasts passive voice sentences, which can be indirect and obscure, with their active voice counterparts, which are more straightforward and easier to understand. The paragraph also includes a note about copyright information for the program, encouraging viewers to visit the Stanford University medical school website for more information.

Keywords

💡Active Voice

The active voice is a grammatical voice where the subject of the sentence performs the action. It follows the structure 'subject + verb + object'. In the context of the video, the active voice is encouraged for scientific writing because it makes sentences more direct and clear. For example, the script contrasts 'she drives the car' (active voice) with 'the car was driven by her' (passive voice), highlighting the clarity of the former.

💡Passive Voice

The passive voice is a grammatical voice where the subject of the sentence receives the action. It often follows the structure 'object + verb + subject' or sometimes just 'object + verb'. The video script explains that the passive voice can make sentences sound awkward and is often used to avoid assigning responsibility, as in the example 'Mistakes were made' where the doer of the action is not specified.

💡Subject

A subject in a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that performs the action or is being described. The video emphasizes the importance of the subject's placement in the active voice ('subject + verb + object') to enhance clarity and directness in writing. It contrasts this with the passive voice where the subject may be omitted or placed after the verb.

💡Verb

A verb is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being. The script discusses the importance of using strong verbs in the active voice to make writing more engaging and direct. It also advises against turning verbs into nouns, which can lead to wordiness.

💡Object

An object in a sentence receives or is affected by the action. The video script explains that in the active voice, the object comes after the verb, as in 'she throws the ball' where 'the ball' is the object. In the passive voice, the object may come before the verb, as in 'the ball was thrown by her'.

💡Transitive Verb

A transitive verb is a verb that requires one or more objects to complete its meaning. The script uses 'she throws the ball' as an example, where 'throws' is a transitive verb because it requires the object 'the ball'. Transitive verbs are often used to form the passive voice.

💡Intransitive Verb

An intransitive verb does not require an object to complete its meaning. The script gives 'she runs' as an example, where 'runs' is an intransitive verb because it does not need an object. Intransitive verbs cannot be turned into the passive voice.

💡Clutter

Clutter in writing refers to unnecessary words or phrases that make sentences unclear or hard to read. The video script begins by reminding viewers of the importance of cutting clutter from sentences to improve the clarity and effectiveness of scientific writing.

💡Mantra

In the context of the video, a mantra is a phrase or formula that is repeated to help remember a principle or guideline. The script suggests using 'subject, verb, object' as a mantra to help writers remember to use the active voice in their writing.

💡Noun

A noun is a word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. The video script advises against turning verbs into nouns because it can lead to less direct and more cumbersome writing. For example, instead of saying 'the activation of the system' (a noun phrase), it's better to say 'the system activates' (using a verb).

💡Readability

Readability refers to how easy it is to read and understand a piece of writing. The video script emphasizes the importance of using the active voice to improve the readability of scientific writing, making it more direct and easier for readers to understand.

Highlights

Introduction to the second week of Writing in the Sciences course by Kristin Sainani from Stanford University.

Emphasis on the importance of using the active voice in scientific writing.

Explanation of the active voice structure: subject, verb, object.

Advantages of the active voice over the passive voice in clarity and directness.

Mantra for writing: 'subject, verb, object' to internalize active voice usage.

Definition and structure of the passive voice: object, verb, subject.

The awkwardness and indirectness of the passive voice in both speech and writing.

Example of passive voice: 'Mistakes were made' and its implications.

Identification of passive verbs through the use of 'to be' forms.

Explanation of how to recognize the passive voice by looking for object-verb inversion.

Advocating for active voice to enhance readability and responsibility in scientific writing.

Example of turning a passive voice sentence into active voice: 'My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me'.

Recommendation of 'The Elements of Style' by Strunk and White for writing improvement.

Another passive voice example without a subject: 'She is loved'.

The impact of active voice on forcing specificity and clarity in scientific statements.

Technique for converting passive voice to active voice by asking 'who does what to whom?'.

Example of a complex scientific sentence in passive voice and its conversion to active voice.

Discussion on how active voice can lead to more concise writing by cutting unnecessary words.

Final thoughts on the benefits of active voice for directness and clarity in scientific communication.

Transcripts

Welcome to Week Two of Writing in the Sciences.

I'm Kristin Sainani from Stanford University.

Last week, we had an overview of three key principles of effective writing.

And we talked about the first of those which was cutting all the clutter, all the

unnecessary words and phrases from your sentences.

This week, I'm going to focus on the latter two principles which both had to do

with verbs. So, the first one is we're going to talk

about the use of the active voice. And then, we'll talk about writing with

verbs. Using strong verbs, avoiding turning verbs

into nouns, and keeping the main verb of your sentence up near the subject, close

to the beginning of the sentence. So, what is the active voice?

So, the active voice follows the format, subject, verb, object.

And this is the way we normally talk, right?

We say, she drives the car, she throws the ball.

It's a very normal way of talking and a normal way of writing.

And if you, as you'll see in a minute, if you change over to the passive voice, it

starts to sound very awkward. So, I really want you to start thinking

about using the active voice. And some of you may have learned or picked

up along the way the habit of using the passive voice.

So, to help break you off that habit, I'm going to suggest that next time you sit

down to write, you actually kind of have this mantra in your head.

You think, subject, verb, object, subject, verb, object, subject, verb, object.

You just kind of get that beaten into your head and remind yourself that you are

suppose to write subject, verb, object. So again, the active voice is just

subject, verb, object, subject, verb, object and sometimes it's just subject,

verb. It doesn't always have to have an object.

Alright. So, contrast that the passive voice.

What does the passive voice look like? So, the passive voice, inverts that

structure. It goes object, verb, subject or sometimes

just object, verb. And the subject is actually completely

removed out of the sentence. And you can see it's a very kind of

awkward way if you are trying to talk this way.

You would say, instead of she throws the ball.

You would say, the ball was thrown by her or the ball is thrown by her.

And you can see that's a really awkward way to talk, and so we never talk in the

passive voice. But yet, somehow, when we sit down to do

academic or scientific writing, a lot of us start to you know, talk in the passive

voice in our writing. And it's also very awkward in writing.

The classic example of the passive voice is the following sentence.

Mistakes were made. Now, notice that's in the passive voice,

because the object what was made, was the mistake, so the object starts that

sentence. Then we get the passive verb, were made,

and then there's no subject so we don't know who made the mistakes, right?

They just kind of fell out of thin air, they just happened.

Mistakes were made, nobody's responsible. So, the passive voice is a way that you

can type a sort of abdicates your responsibility, right?

And so, that's one of the reasons that it exists in the English language.

You can recognize the passive voice by looking for the passive verb.

And that verb will have two parts to it. It will have a form of the verb, to be,

that's is, or, was, were, the, then or am, and then, it will have a main verb that

will be in the past tense. And that main verb has to take an object,

it's what we call a transitive verb it has to take an object or you won't be able to

invert it into the passive voice. So, a verb that takes an object would be

again like, she throws the ball. So, the verb throws in that sentence takes

the object the ball. Contrast that to the sentence, she runs,

where you're just talking about the athletic activity of running.

If you say she runs, in that sentence, run does not take an object.

So, there's no way to turn that into the passive voice.

However, if you said, she runs the company, then you could turn that into the

passive voice because, in that sentence, run takes an object, the company.

So then, you could say, the company is run by her.

So, that's the passive voice. And you can recognize it by looking for,

again, a form of the verb to be connected to the past tense of the main verb.

And what is the, what are the two b verbs, just to remind you in case you've

forgotten, those are is, are, was, were, be, been and am.

And sometimes the be or the been is paired with something else like you might see

could be, or shall be, or will be, or has been.

But, you're looking for one of these to be verbs.

So, how do you recognize the passive voice?

So, you are looking for the passive verb, that is a verb that's a to-be verb,

connected to another verb in the past tense, or you can just look for the

structure object, verb, subject. So, you kind of figure out what's the

object in the sentence, what's subject, and have those been inverted.

And again, sometimes you'll just see object, verb, that's an easier sentence to

recognize as being in the passive voice because since there is no subject, it's

pretty obvious that that's in the passive voice.

So, you are looking for object, verb, subject, we're just object verb.

And I'm going to try to get you in the habit of, recognizing the passive voice so

that you can turn it back into the active voice.

So, here's an example of a passive voice sentence.

I took this sentence from Strunk and White it's a very classic little book.

If you want to pick up something else to read for this class, it's called The

Elements of Style. It's very short.

It's very good. So, if you have some time and want to pick

something up to read, I think you can even get that one online.

So, today I brought the sentence, My first visit to Boston will always be remembered

by me. So, you can see, when you read that out

loud, how awkward and funny sounding that is, right?

We don't talk in a passive voice. So, you can recognize that's a passive

voice because it starts with the object. So, you think about what was remembered?

The visit was remembered. So, the visit is the object of the verb

remembered. So, here's my object then you get a

passive verb and again, you can recognize the passive verb because you have a form

of the verb to be so we've got will be and then you've got the past tense of the verb

that takes the object so that's the remembered.

So, here's the verb. And then, you get the subject at the end

of the sentence, that's me, right? The subject is me in the sentence.

So, we get object, verb, subject. So, how would you turn that back into the

active voice? Well, of course, you would just say, I

will always remember my first visit to Boston.

That's a much more natural way to speak. And yeah, it's in a lot of academic and

scientific literature, we do this in our writing.

We, we give that first version. My first visit to Boston will always be

remembered by me. So, you can see how, how funny that is,

and also how hard on the reader. So, here's another example of a passive

voice sentence. So it says, She is loved, which, of

course, brings up all sorts of interesting questions like, who is loving her?

This is an example of a passive voice sentence in which there is no subject.

So, you can recognize the, the passive verb again because we have the to be verb

is, and then we have loved which is the past tense of love, which is a verb that

takes an object, you usually love something.

So, we get our passive verb there. And then, we think about, well, what's the

she in this sentence. The she is not the one doing the loving so

she is not the subject. She is the one being loved so she is the

object of the love. And who is loving her?

Well, we don't know that, that remains a mystery.

So, this is an example of a passive voice, where the subject has been completely

removed and leaving it to be, you know, somewhat of a mystery.

Here's another example of a passive voice sentence, in which the subject has been

omitted from the sentence. So, it says, cigarette ads were designed

to appeal especially to children. So, notice again, we've got the passive

verb, the word designed, and the object, what was designed, is the cigarette ads.

Now, who designed them? Well, when you read this, it's almost

like, they just kind of were designed that way.

It just happened, it wasn't intentional. Nobody did it, nobody is responsible.

It just happened that way. So, you can see again, why people might

want to use the passive voice in some cases.

It takes away the subject. It takes away the responsible party.

So, in contrast to that passive voice sentence to the active voice version,

which would be something like, we designed the cigarette ads to appeal especially to

children. So, you can see that when you turn things

into the active voice, it forces you, to then have a responsible party.

So, how do you turn the passive voice back into the active voice?

So, first of all, you have to recognize when a sentence is in a passive voice,

that's the first step. Then, to turn it back to the active voice,

you have to ask yourself the question, who does what to whom?

Who is the subject that I send it to? Who is the object?

And you want to then invert that sentence back into subject, verb, object.

In some cases, there won't be a subject, some of the editing exercises that we are

going to do, there won't be a subject so you might have to guess, you know, that

the subject is we, or the authors of the paper.

So, here's an example of a passive voice sentence that we can turn back into the

active voice. So, it says, by applying a high

resolution, 90 degree bending magnet, downstream of the laser electron magnetic

region, the spectrum of the electron beams could be observed.

So, you can see that that's the passive voice because well, first of all, we don't

have a subject here. We don't know who's doing the observing.

We know what was observed to the spectrum of electron beams, but we don't know who

was doing the observing? Then, we've got the could be, that's the

form of the verb to be, and then we've got the observe, the past tense of a verb that

takes an object. So, to turn us and went back to the active

voice, we kind of have to guess who's subject of the sentence.

Well, if this was coming out of a scientific manuscript.

Probably, it's the authors who are writing the paper.

So, they could say something, like, the active version would be, we could observe

the spectrum of the electron beams by applying a high resolution 90 degree

bending magnet. So, you have to identify the subject.

In this case, it's probably the authors, and they can use the word we in their

paper, we could observe this, to turn that into the active voice.

So, here's another example. It says, general dysfunction of the immune

system has been suggested that the leukocyte level in both animal and human

studies. Okay.

So again, this one's little more hidden. But if you kind of look at it carefully,

you can recognize that it has passive voice because we've got the has been,

that's the form of the verb to be, the suggested.

A````nd what's the object? What's being suggested?

What's being suggested is this dysfunction of the immune system.

What's doing the suggesting in this case is the studies, the animal and human

studies. So, to turn this one back into active

voice we would put the animal and human studies first and have them suggesting

this conclusion. So, we would say, both human and animal

studies suggest that diabetics have general immune dysfunction at the

leukocyte level. And notice that when I wrote it in the

active voice, I, I added this word that diabetic.

It actually kind of forced me to be a little less ambiguous.

And the active voice often forces you to be more specific about what you're talking

about. So I've now put that one into the active

voice. It's the studies that are suggesting this

finding. And then, I actually had to give it a

little bit more specificity there. It's this particular finding in diabetics.

So, here's another example. Increased promoter occupancy and

transcriptional activation of p21 and other target genes were observed.

Okay, so again, this is passive voice without a subject so we don't know so who

was doing the observing, obviously, from the context of the paper, we, we can guess

that. In this case, I am going to estimate it

was the authors of the paper who were doing the observing.

So, we would turn this into the active voice by saying we observed increased

promotor occupancy in transcriptional activation of p21 and other target genes.

And that's just a much more easier to read sentence, and all I've done is taken that

first sentence which was in the passive voice and turned it into the active voice.

And just that little change makes a big difference in the readability of that

sentence. So, here's another example in the passive

voice. The activation of Calcium channels is

induced by the depletion of endoplasmic reticular calcium stores.

So, you can see that the passive voice also is kind of like the cause and effect

come backwards, right? It's, the effect was, was caused by the,

the cause, right? So, it kind of inverts everything.

So, we have to, again, think about, well, what's the subject here and what is the

object? So, the subject, what's doing the

inducing, is the depletion of endoplasmic reticulum calcium stores.

What's being induced is the activation of calcium channels.

So, again, we're going to want to turn that around.

And turning this around, you'll see, is going to make this sentence a lot easier

to read and a lot clearer. So, we would say, depleting calcium from

the endoplasmic reticulum activates calcium channels.

And notice that I got rid of one of these extra words here because we had, you know,

that the depletion was inducing the activation, and when you put it in the

active voice, you can see that you've got to get these two verbs they induced in,

while activation is a, a noun that could have been a verb.

So, I took that activation and turned it back to the verb and I got rid of the

induced part, cuz I didn't need to kind of say, activates twice.

So, that makes that sentence a lot shorter, a lot crisper.

So, depleting calcium from the endoplasmic reticulum activates calcium channels.

It's very direct. So, that's one of the nice things about

the active voice, is it kind of forces you to be direct.

It gives you a lot of opportunities to cut extra words and to be really direct.

So, here's another example. In the passive voice it says,

additionally, it was found that pretreatment with antibiotics increased

the number of super-shedders. While immunosuppression did not.

So, notice how that sentence starts. It was found that, so again, we don't know

who did the finding. It's, you know, probably the authors of

the paper. You could try that into the active voice,

simply by saying, we found that pretreatment was, with antibiotics

increased the number of super-shedders. However, you could even be a little bit

more direct. You could even do a little better than

that because probably this is in the results section of their manuscript and

they probably don't need to start every sentence with we found that or it was

found that, they can just say what was found.

So, they can actually, you can cut out that whole little kind of clearing your

throat, it was found that, and just say directly what was found.

So, in that case, the pretreatment with the antibiotics becomes the subject.

It's the pretreatment with antibiotics that increases, that does the action, that

increases the number, of, of super-shedders.

So, we could rewrite this one in the active voice, getting rid of completely

the whole found verb to pretreating the mice with antibiotics, increase the number

of super-shedders while immunosuppression, suppression did not.

The proceeding program is copyrighted by the board of trustees of the Leland

Standford Junior University. Please visit us at med.standford.edu.