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I've heard English teachers cargo cult the passive voice thing for ever. This crowd will understand the passive voice as a form of abstraction. If anything co

I've heard English teachers cargo cult the passive voice thing for ever. This crowd will understand the passive voice as a form of abstraction. If anything could suffice as the subject, then it's not important to the meaning of the sentence, and you convey that in English by implying but not specifying the subject (the passive voice). In scientific procedures for example, the whole point is that anyone could replicate it. 30 grams of goop was added to the beaker. Doesn't matter if it was you or one of your coworkers, or another group trying to replicate.

natdempk 3y ago
When I learned about passive voice, scientific writing was often mentioned as an explicit exception. What you say makes sense when you are abstractly describing something that happened, but also I'd argue that "We added 30 grams of goop to the beaker" or "Added 30 grams of goop to the beaker" is clearer than "30 grams of goop was added to the beaker". Depends on the context and style conventions of course, but often passive voice is still poor/indirect writing in many scientific contexts.