Basic Scientific Writing in EnglishLecture 7.ppt

Basic Scientific Writing in EnglishLecture 7 Professor Ralph Kirby Faculty of Life Sciences Extension 7323 Room B322 Active and passive voice for verbs Inter-converting tenses between English and Chinese has many problems Past, present and future can rely solely on context in Chinese. In English, it must be specified Whether the action has been completed or is intended to be completed is central to Chinese and has no real equivalent in English The passive voice of a verb has no real equivalent in Chinese Active and Passive Voice He studies the book. He studied the book. He will study the book. These are all active voice as the person is directly involved The book is studied by him. The book was studied by him. The book will be studied by him. These are all passive voice as the subject of the sentence, ‘the book’ is acted on by someone Classically in science: “The following results were obtained . . . . .” “We obtained the following results . . . . .” Which is active and which is passive” British English scientists tend to overuse the passive compared to American English scientists. Chinese 1st language speakers very rarely use the passive when writing a paper Grammar checkers will highlight all passives as wrong? Is the passive voice always wrong. No! Some scientists would say that you should never use the passive voice. I disagree You should avoid using the passive unless you have a reason to use it because it uses more words and can make what you mean more confusing When to use the passive When you cannot avoid it The baby was born in the Maternity Hospital The mother bore the baby in the Maternity Hospital The 2nd sentence means the same, but is longer and reads poorly The Petri dishes were made of plastic The manufacturer made the Petri dishes out of plastic Not the same meaning. Better still, “ Plastic Petri dishes” Why have I used “Petri” rather than “petri” in the middle of the above sentences? The word “petri” is highlighted by the spell-grammar checker!