Tag Archives: passive voice

The passive voice is political

Posted on October 3, 2022 by VM

Eric Martinez, Francis Mollica and Edward Gibson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Edinburgh won an Ig Nobel Prize for literature this year for their work on what makes legal documents so hard to read. Ironically, … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Scicomm | Tagged active voice, Ig Nobel Prize, MIT, passive voice, science communication, science writing | Leave a comment

The passive is political

Posted on September 30, 2020 by VM

If Saruman is the stupid shit people say, I have often found Grima Wormtongue is the use of the passive voice. To the uninitiated: Wormtongue was a slimy fellow on Saruman’s side in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Op-eds | Tagged active voice, internet age, knowledge is power, mainstream press, Markandey Katju, Marshall McLuhan, meta-analysis, passive voice, science communication, scientific literature, scientific writing, The Souffle, writing | Leave a comment

Why scientists should read more

Posted on August 29, 2020 by VM

The amount of communicative effort to describe the fact of a ball being thrown is vanishingly low. It’s as simple as saying, “X threw the ball.” It takes a bit more effort to describe how an internal combustion engine works … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged active voice, Casimir effect, communication, complexity, English as second language, ESL, first language, grammar, Learning, mainstream media, meaning making, passive voice, physics, quantum physics, reading, science communication, science journalism, scientific knowledge, teaching, wisdom | Leave a comment

Tag Archives: passive voice

The passive voice is political

The passive is political

Why scientists should read more

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