"This isn't English class, so I'm not going to grade on grammar." Dangerous practice?

[JustThinkin]

@Indistinguishable

Your active voice rewrite is a perfectly natural, well-written, appropriate sentence. But in what way wasn’t the passive voice original also just as perfectly natural, well-written, and appropriate? That is to say, what substantive advantage is gained by the rewrite?

1. Less words to slog through.

2. The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.

I don’t believe that switching to active voice guarantees that something will be well-written. There’s a lot more to good writing than only that. I’ve noticed for myself, however, that trying to write active sentences makes me a lot more aware of the nuances of meaning, word choice, and word order. It makes me a better writer.

[Indistinguishable]

@JustThinkin'

1. Less words to slog through.

All you changed was “were given” to “received” (in two clauses). That’s one less word to slog through, and it’s not like it was a slog in the first place; it makes absolutely no difference.

Also, I doubt you would say that an active voice “took the throne” should be replaced with a passive voice “was crowned” just because it saved one word. I don’t think blind word count minimization is really a consistently applied criterion.

2. The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.

No, I don’t think so. They both sound equally natural to me. I can’t think of anything the active voice version does that the passive voice version didn’t; it certainly doesn’t contain more action or any such thing, since the two pretty much identically describe the exact same action. I think this is just the terminology’s effect on people jumping in. It might have been better had grammarians called them “Left voice” and “Right voice” or something instead; then perhaps there would be less claims that “left voice” sentences do things that “right voice” sentences don’t.

I don’t believe that switching to active voice guarantees that something will be well-written. There’s a lot more to good writing than only that. I’ve noticed for myself, however, that trying to write active sentences makes me a lot more aware of the nuances of meaning, word choice, and word order. It makes me a better writer.

It may well be that for whatever reason, you have become aware of nuances you weren’t aware of before and that you have become a better writer; I don’t know your history. But in this case, I think any advantages you see to the switch are spurious.

[Indistinguishable]

Also, let me say, the worst academic articles and books I ever had to slog through, I can’t recall their problems stemming from the passive voice; they may have been bad, and they may have used the passive voice (well, of course they did, everyone does), but the latter seems like a red herring in terms of something to blame for the former. If you think otherwise, could you perhaps link me to an actual awfully written article or paper or what have you whose problems are attributable to an overuse of the passive voice?

[Hostile_Dialect]

Exactly what I wanted to say, Indistinguishable, but better. Thanks.

[Gary_Robson]

@Hostile Dialect

Exactly what I wanted to say, Indistinguishable, but better. Thanks.

When I first saw the thread title, I assumed for some reason that it was about high school. I came in here to say that teachers in different subjects need to work together to produce a well-rounded individual. Accepting poor grammar in math class, poor math in physics class, and poor geography in English class just teaches that none of the subjects apply across their whole life.

Seeing that it’s college (and science no less) boggles my mind. If you’re going for a degree in science, you are probably considering a career as a scientist. Do you know what scientists do? They write. A LOT. Grant proposals, papers, experimental results, lab notebooks, instructions for assistants, instructions for subjects (if working with people), specifications for software and equipment that may need to be customized, and a whole lot more.

Writing should be a very strong part of any science curriculum, and should be taken into account in all grading in all classes.

An anecdote: In a company I started some years back, I developed a new technology (well–a new application for an old technology, but let’s not be picky). I wanted to hire a writer to take some of the load off of me. He would do principally marketing work, but would help in other areas as well. My partners insisted we hire an MBA so that he could help them with some other projects, too.

So, we have an MBA with a minor in marketing communication. His first assignment was to create a white paper about my new technology so that we could show it to prospective customers and investors. He talked to me at great length, went away for a week, and came back with a paper.

I couldn’t understand his paper. I invented the technology, and his paper didn’t make any sense to me. It was so buried in fifty-word sentences and loaded with academic double-speak that I stopped reading after the first page. I went to him and said, “Rewrite this from scratch. If a tenth-grader can’t understand it, it’s not acceptable.”

(No, the technology itself was not beyond the grasp of your average tenth-grader)

[bitwise]

@JustThinkin'

I frequently edit highly technical content and freely admit that I don’t understand always understand it. Understanding it isn’t necessarily my job. However, I apply the “gist” test – if a non-technical person like me can get the gist of it, then it’s probably written pretty clearly. If I have to read it over and over to figure it out, then I’ll rewrite it and mark it for the SME to check for accuracy.

The problem is that often the gist is not good enough. It may not be your job to understand more than the gist, but it is my job to communicate the exact details, not just the gist, to non-technical people. If I want product managers to verify that the software does what they intended, I need them to understand exactly what it does, not just the gist of what it does.

@JustThinkin'

@bitwise

Not having a better way, I decided to implement a simple solution: check that the number of valid sales for the current day is at most a certain number of standard deviations away from the mean for the last 30 days; and likewise for the number of invalid sales and the number of duplicate sales.

I can see several ways you could write this more clearly. It’s not bad – I get the gist – but it’s wordy. Any sentence that contains both a colon and a semi-colon should be rewritten.

OK, how would you rewrite it? Surely, the thing about the colon and semicolon is not a hard rule. Also, you may think it is wordy, but I’ve already trimmed it down significantly at the risk of leaving too much open to interpretation.

[bitwise]

@JustThinkin'

2. The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.

The worst academic articles and books suffered from a problem that should have been caught by the editors: typos. I remember reading one book that was littered with typos: this plus-sign should be a minus-sign; this p should be 1-p; this 0 should be a 1.

(There I go with the colons and semicolons again. Perhaps, it’s a habit. And reading what I wrote again, I see that I’ve used the passive voice twice, both times in restrictive clauses. Did that actually impede understanding?)

[Indistinguishable]

@bitwise

The worst academic articles and books suffered from a problem that should have been caught by the editors: typos. I remember reading one book that was littered with typos: this plus-sign should be a minus-sign; this p should be 1-p; this 0 should be a 1.

Man, tell me about it; along with your name, that brings the memories flooding back. There was this one book I read on bitwise operator identities. I can’t remember the name, but it was fucking riddled with these kinds of things: this & should be an |, this | should be an &. And, god, there were so many missing ~s! They’d be missing on constants, they’d be missing on half the arguments to ^. A total mess…

[Argent_Towers]

Neglecting grammar in non-English related subjects is like a music teacher instructing his students on getting all the notes right but not teaching them proper intonation.

[Otto]

@JustThinkin'

1. Less words to slog through.

Fewer.

[JustThinkin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustThinkin’

1. Less words to slog through.

@Otto

Fewer.

Heh. I’m surprised this is the first I’ve been called on. That’s the problem with getting into a discussion about writing – it just taunts Gaudere’s law.

From Indistinguishable:

No, I don’t think so. They both sound equally natural to me. I can’t think of anything the active voice version does that the passive voice version didn’t; it certainly doesn’t contain more action or any such thing, since the two pretty much identically describe the exact same action. I think this is just the terminology’s effect on people jumping in. It might have been better had grammarians called them “Left voice” and “Right voice” or something instead; then perhaps there would be less claims that “left voice” sentences do things that “right voice” sentences don’t.

<Shrug> It’s not my job to convert you.

From Bitwise:
The problem is that often the gist is not good enough. It may not be your job to understand more than the gist, but it is my job to communicate the exact details, not just the gist, to non-technical people. If I want product managers to verify that the software does what they intended, I need them to understand exactly what it does, not just the gist of what it does.

I apply this mostly in the context of highly techical content written for a technical audience. If I’m writing for a non-technical audience, I apply much different criteria.

From Bitwise:
OK, how would you rewrite it? Surely, the thing about the colon and semicolon is not a hard rule. Also, you may think it is wordy, but I’ve already trimmed it down significantly at the risk of leaving too much open to interpretation.

<Sigh> It’s Sunday. I don’t want to wrok that hard.

[guizot]

@JustThinkin'

For example, I’d rewrite your illustration thus:

“Half of the participants received injections of X; the other half received a placebo.”

The sentence is active AND emphasizes the appropriate agent.

Semantically, the subject of receive is not an agent. It’s an experiencer. It works in this case because receive is the multi-purpose, vague alternate verb for a whole bag of more descriptive verbs. I shouldn’t have used give and an example.

Compare:
“The cells were injected with X.”

with

“The cells received X.”

or at best,

“The cells received an injection of X.”

Neither of these is any “better” writing just because it’s in the active voice. To mechanically make every sentence active without thinking is to think only on the sentence level and ignore the need for cohesive extended discourse. There’s a reason why English has a passive voice, and it isn’t just to annoy English teachers. It’s a problem only when it makes the text difficult to follow or unclear.

@JustThinkin'

My argument is that it’s too often used as the default without any real thought about effective sentence structure or clarity.

Effective sentence structure and clarity are things which depend upon the sentences that come before and go after, and often they recommend passive voice.

[Hostile_Dialect]

In fact, “the cells received X” is much less communicative, lively, interesting, whatever, than “the cells were injected with X”. It leaves the question, how did the cells receive X? Improperly sealed test tubes? Titration? Infection?

[Indistinguishable]

@Otto

Fewer.

I’ll repost what I’ve posted before about this silly little old wives’ tale:

You have been taught, through no fault of your own, an appallingly widespread but absolutely incorrect fact about the rules of English. Let me quote Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage (link to the relevant portion):

@MWCDEU

Here is the rule as it is usually encountered: “fewer” refers to number among things that are counted, and “less” refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured. This rule is simple enough and easy enough to follow. It has only one fault – it is not accurate for all usage. If we were to write the rule from the observation of actual usage, it would be the same for “fewer”: “fewer” does refer to number among things that are counted. However, it would be different for “less”: “less” refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted. Our amended rule describes the actual usage of the past thousand years or so.

As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on “less”:

“This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think ‘Fewer’ would do better. ‘No Fewer than a Hundred’ appears to me not only more elegant than ‘No less than a Hundred’, but strictly proper.” --Baker 1770

Baker’s remarks about fewer express clearly and modestly – “I should think,” “appears to me” – his own taste and preference.

…

The OED shows that “less” has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great – he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin – more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially “less” has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that “fewer” might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker’s lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe “less” used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

A lot of examples then follow to back up the assertion that “less” used with countables remains, as it always has been, a perfectly standard usage.

So, basically, what we have here is a feature of English that has been thoroughly ordinary for more than a millenium. About two hundred years ago, some guy came along and expressed his own idiosyncratic preferences, but this never really took on with the English speaking public at large, and thus never really became a true rule of English grammar, though it ended up being codified nonetheless in an awful lot of wrongheaded usage guides, the sort which rarely bother to take a glance at reality. (Another choice quote from the excerpt: “This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.”)

[bitwise]

@JustThinkin'

I apply this mostly in the context of highly techical content written for a technical audience. If I’m writing for a non-technical audience, I apply much different criteria.

The challenge I face is how to present technical content to a non-technical audience. I would not say the content is “highly” technical though, as I try to omit unnecessary details. But I do want them to understand the necessary details. I want to provide more than just a summary, because I feel that a summary often misleads people into thinking they’ve understood something when they haven’t. (Incidentally, this why I think science reporting in the news is so bad.) I don’t want them to get just the gist; I want them to walk away with enough information to make informed decisions.

However, I’ve not found any useful guides on how to do this. So I proceed by trial and error. One thing I’ve found is that people have trouble comprehending mathematical English. By “mathematical English”, I do not mean English with a lot of mathematical terminology. (I did use “mean” and “standard deviation” above. Perhaps, it was bad to assume that someone with a high-school level education understands those terms.) What I mean is the use of common English words to express logical relationships and mathematical comparisons ([post=9270355]see my post above[/post]). I try to add disambiguating words when mathematical usage differs from normal, everyday English; for example, I’ll add “or both” to specify an inclusive OR and add “but not both” to specify an exclusive OR. Even then, I find that people have trouble understanding this style of English. I think to understand it, you must become accustomed to it—and this can only be achieved by reading a lot of it. I find this difference in style to be a significant barrier to communication between technical and non-technical people. (I might be making an overly broad statement here. I should clarify that my technical background is in computer science and mathematics.)

[Indistinguishable]

I just noticed this:

@bitwise

I’ve also found that people have trouble with logical connectives and quantifiers. For instance, I remember someone not understanding me when I told her, “We will show the item if the condition holds for at least one distribution.” She did not understand me until I rephrased that sentence in the contrapositive: “If the condition holds for no item, then we will not show the item.” I found this quite puzzling, because to me the second sentence seems harder to understand since it contains two negatives.

It’s also not the contrapositive of your original sentence. The contrapositive would be “If we don’t show the item, then the condition holds for no distribution.” I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that “if-then” indicates “if and only if”, but it just goes to show that things aren’t as straightforward as you might have thought.

[Indistinguishable]

@Indistinguishable

I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that “if-then” indicates “if and only if”

Sorry, I shouldn’t have said “if-then”; rather, the “X if Y” structure. In fact, I think explicit use of “then” actually suppresses the “if and only if” interpretation.

[bitwise]

@Indistinguishable

I just noticed this:
It’s also not the contrapositive of your original sentence. The contrapositive would be “If we don’t show the item, then the condition holds for no distribution.” I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that “if-then” indicates “if and only if”, but it just goes to show that things aren’t as straightforward as they might seem.

Oops, actually, I made more than one mistake. I also typed “item” twice. What I actually said was,

“We will show the item only if the condition holds for at least one distribution.”

and

“If the condition holds for no distribution, then we will not show the item.”

And yes, at the time, I also thought I should use “if and only if” to be strictly correct, but I did not want to confuse her more. I don’t think it’s straightforward. Even with training, you have to focus your attention in order to write precisely, as I’ve shown with the mistakes I made above. But I really think this is a different style of communication from what most people are used to. An omitted word or the change in the position of a word can completely alter the meaning. I think perhaps lawyers are good with this kind of English; but their field may be considered technical too.

[bitwise]

@bitwise

And yes, at the time, I also thought I should use “if and only if” to be strictly correct, but I did not want to confuse her more.

On further thought, I think what I really needed here was some kind of modal logic. What I meant by “we will show the item” was, of course, that the code will execute a command to show the item. So what’s really needed is some kind of imperative that tells the code to show the item or not. But I don’t really know anything about modal logic, and this discussion is becoming too technical. I don’t really need anyone to translate the English into a formal language. I just need the (non-technical) readers to be able to understand it and say, “Yes, this is what I want,” or “No, that’s not right. What happens in the case where …”

[JustThinkin]

**Bitwise ** -

I sympathize with your dilemma. As a tech writer, I often place myself in the position of translator – translating technical subjects for non-technical audiences. It can be really hard to find the words and phrases that are both accurate and understandable in context.

In this phrase: “if the condition holds,” my kneejerk reaction is to ask: Holds what? Holds a hand? Holds a fork? The word “hold” has several meanings; the most common involves some physical restraint. The meaning you use is one you’d find in the dictionary (I think), but is used most commonly in more technical contexts.

What does “if the condition holds” really mean? Does the condition remain true? Is the program (or whatever) looking for a specific condition?

Don’t know if this helps or just adds fuel to any flames coming my way.