My goal with these scripts is really to prevent inappropriate use of the constructs I described. Reading the article over again, I do see how it makes it seems

My goal with these scripts is really to prevent inappropriate use of the constructs I described. Reading the article over again, I do see how it makes it seems like I'm on a quest to ban these constructs. That's my fault for not being clearer. ;) Most of the time, my students use these constructs without thinking about it. That's the real problem. Perhaps I should have posted a few paragraphs from a recent draft to highlight what I meant by inappropriate (or excessive) use, but I don't think my grad students would appreciate a public shaming. As I mentioned in the article, there are times when the passive voice and adverbs have their uses. It would be a net positive if my grad students removed all their adverbs and all passive voice from their recent drafts. (Of course, the optimum would be to leave only the appropriate uses of these constructs.) I'm willing to bet this is true for a lot of new grad students in science or engineering first learning how to do scientific writing. It was certainly true for me once upon a time. Having the scripts highlight these constructs forces students to ask the question, "Is there a way I can say this better?" If the answer really is "No," then they can leave it in. But, I want them to think about it. /article author