Passive Voice in Medical Writing

Abstract

Many writers consider the passive voice to be the standard form of scientific writing, the thing that affects the other writers’ choice of language structure along with the readers’ perception. In this paper, the writer discusses the notion of passive voice in scientific writing with reference to the medical writing as a case study.

The writer built this paper on an objective to prove that the standardization theory of passive voice in scientific writing is just a fallacy. To achieve that, the quantitative method is used through selecting a random group of Medical Sciences students who are in their graduate year. The group had a test to know if they can easily deal with passive voice or not. Then they have read two passages that one of them consists of passive voice sentences and the other one contains only active voice sentences. The examinees have drawn a comparison between the two sentences according to the given questions.

The results have shown that only 33% have passed the test leaving 67% behind.

Nevertheless, the questionnaire has come to cement the results of the test by showing the preference the examinees have for the Active voice writing over the Passive.