Investigation of Passive Voice Occurrence in Scientific Writing

Abstract

This study investigated passive voice use in theses of Graduate EFL students, Universitas Negeri Malang. The occurrences of passive voice in research method chapter in two time periods, 1985 - 2000 and 2002 – 2015 were compared. Passive voice occurrence in chapter of research method was also investigated then it was compared with the active. Passive voice occurrence in theses before 2002 investigated which was 1458, and 1171 in theses published after 2000 indicated the fact that today passive voice use in scientific writing indeed less frequent compared to the past. In addition, unlike the findings of some previous studies that claimed passive voice occurrence is still more dominant than the active in method section of scientific writing, this study found that, even in chapter of research method, active voice today occurs more frequently. It was 1883 occurrences of active voice and 1171 of passive voice were found.

“Expunge Virtually All Use of the Passive Voice”: How Does Style Guideline Affect Passive Voice Occurrences in Research Articles?

“…Their focus was on analyzing the occurrences of active voice (AV) and passive voice (PV) frequencies in research articles for instance, Yannuar et al (2014) analyzed the frequent verbs used in 124 Indonesian undergraduate theses and found that AV appeared more frequently than PV. Similarly, Subagio et al (2019), who investigated the 'Method' section of Graduate EFL students' theses of Universitas Negeri Malang from two periods (1985-2000 and 2002-2015), revealed that AV sentences appeared more frequently in those research reports than PV.…”

“…PV occurrences in students' writing seem to have been underexplored. However, Yannuar (2014) and Subagio (2019) took a different approach compared to the aforementioned studies. Their focus was on analyzing the occurrences of active voice (AV) and passive voice (PV) frequencies in research articles for instance, Yannuar et al (2014) analyzed the frequent verbs used in 124 Indonesian undergraduate theses and found that AV appeared more frequently than PV.…”

The Translation of Indonesian Passive Voice in Research Articles’ Abstracts into English: Human Vs Machine Translation

“…In countries where English is the second language and non-speaking English nations including Indonesia, tend to use passive voice in their research articles and even the passive voice is not only prevalent but heavy-handedly enforced in universities research institutes (Inzunza, 2020). Reconsidering the use of passive in research articles some studies had been conducted by Ahmad, (2012); Subagio et al, (2019) which revealed that the passive voice occurrence is higher than active voice. In line with this statement, Horbowicz et al, (2019); Emeksiz, Erk, (2015), also expressed that passive voices are often taken to be the hallmarks of academic text and traditionally considered to be one of the distinctive features of scientific texts.…”