That is a terrific article. Thanks for sending that along (I'm going to give it to my students). Marie http://www.amstat.org/publications/JCGS/sci.pdf
________________________________________ From: David Epstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 11:30 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] APA style: active voice On Mon, 14 Apr 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] went: > However, I agree it is awkward. Getting through the method section > in particular seems to be hard because of the seemingly constant > need to use an active agent for each step of the process and quite > frankly sometimes it's a constant stream of "I" (or "we") did this > or that. > > I have had two recent manuscripts corrected on every single eensy > teensy tiny slip I made, so I know it's being rigidly enforced by > editors. If that happened to me, I would refer the editors to "The Science of Scientific Writing" <http://www.amstat.org/publications/JCGS/sci.pdf>: |The information that begins a sentence establishes for the reader a |perspective for viewing the sentence as a unit: Readers expect a unit |of discourse to be a story about whoever shows up first. "Bees |disperse pollen" and "Pollen is dispersed by bees" are two different |but equally respectable sentences about the same facts. The first |tells us something about bees; the second tells us something about |pollen. The passivity of the second sentence does not by itself |impair its quality; in fact, "Pollen is dispersed by bees" is the |superior sentence if it appears in a paragraph that intends to tell |us a continuing story about pollen. Pollen's story at that moment is |a passive one. If they need to hear it from the APA Manual itself, they can turn to page 42: |The passive voice is acceptable in expository writing and when you |want to focus on the object or recipient of the action rather than on |the actor. For example, "The speakers were attached to either side |of the chair" emphasizes the placement of the speakers, not who |placed them--the more appropriate focus in the Method section. "The |President was shot emphasizes the importance of the person shot." --David Epstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
