By Rupert Sheldrake
"The test tube was carefully
smelled." I was astonished to read this sentence in my 11-year-old son's
science notebook. At primary school his science reports had been lively and
vivid. But when he moved to secondary school they became stilted and
artificial. This was no accident. His teachers told him to write this way. As a
parent and as a scientist, I was shocked.
Why are
many schoolchildren still told to write up their science reports in the
passive, as though experiments happen of their own accord?
When I was at school in the 1950s, my science
teachers made me adopt the passive style, but I had no idea this was still
going on in schools. Ever since I was a graduate student at
The
passive style is not only misleading, it is also alienating. A young medical
student told me "it felt strange at first" when a lecturer asked her
to write her reports in the active. "But then it felt liberating,"
she said. "Suddenly I could be myself again, after years pretending I
wasn't there."
In 2000, I
asked Frank Chennell, then co-ordinator of the Norfolk Teacher-Scientist
Network (TSN), if he could find out how local teachers and scientists thought
children should write science reports. Most teachers agreed that, in line with
the national curriculum, younger children should adopt a direct style. But some
believed that older pupils should use the passive. Most local scientists
favoured the passive for research papers.
When Lord May, the President of the Royal
Society, read the results of this survey in the TSN newsletter, he said he was
"horrified" that the
I found that May's views are shared by many
other eminent scientists. The Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, told me, “I
completely concur with the preference for the active voice. At the moment, the
relation between ‘scientific literature’ and ‘literature’ resembles that
between ‘military intelligence’ and ‘intelligence’. Anything that reduces the
gap between the two – and gives young people less reason to doubt that
scientists think and behave like real human beings – is to be welcomed.” I also
asked Bruce Alberts, President of the US National Academy of Sciences, for his
opinion. He too strongly favours the
active voice.
Many
scientists abandoned the use of the passive voice years ago. In 1953, Watson
and Crick wrote their famous paper in Nature
in the active voice. In an analysis of effective scientific communication,
Nowadays. most scientific journals accept papers in the active voice
and some, including Nature,
positively encourage it. I recently surveyed the current issues of 55 journals
in the physical and biological sciences and found that only two still required
contributions in the passive.
The
passive style did not become fashionable in science until the end of the 19th
century, when it was meant to make science seem more objective, impersonal and
professional. Earlier scientists generally used the active voice, like Isaac
Newton and Charles Darwin. The heyday of the passive in scientific literature
was from about 1920 to 1970.
To find
out what is happening in schools, I contacted the heads of science in 262
secondary schools: 212 state-maintained schools in
After a
brief introduction referring to the
1. “In your school are students usually encouraged
to write their science reports in the active (‘I did…’) or the passive (‘This was done…’) voice?”
2. “If you encourage the use of the passive voice,
do you do so because:
a) because you think it is better
b)because you think it is required by examining boards and/or universities
c) simply as a convention
d)any other reason?
The
results showed an overall average of 45 per cent schools encouraging the use of
the active voice, with 42 per cent promoting the passive. The remaining 13 per
cent had no preference. There was a statistically significant difference
between state-maintained and independent schools: 58 per cent of the
independent schools were pro- passive, compared with 37 per cent of state
schools. Geographically, the proportion of passive-promoting state schools
ranged from 30 per cent in
Some
teachers enthusiastically advocated the active voice, commenting that it is
"more natural", "gives pupils ownership of their work" and
"makes science more personal and pupils more involved". I agree.
Others
said they used the active voice out of necessity. One head of science in an
inner-city comprehensive commented, "We're lucky to get them to write
anything at all. It would be difficult to persuade students to write in a style
so very different from normal speech."
Most of
the teachers promoting the passive voice said they were simply following
convention. They believed that scientific authorities and journals still
require it. But this is an outdated view.
Some
teachers are imposing the passive because they think examination authorities
require it. Is this really the case? To find out, I recently surveyed all the
examination authorities for
The
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the government's guardian of
educational standards in
The
conclusion is unambiguous. In the light of these statements from the various
Authorities, no teacher need feel that the use of the passive voice is
necessary. There is no penalty for using the active voice in science reports.
Nevertheless,
some people feel they need permission to give up the passive convention. In
fact they already have this permission: from the examination authorities, from
journals like Nature and Science, from many eminent scientists,
and from the President of the Royal Society.
Lord May’s
message could not be clearer: "Primary and secondary teachers should,
without any reservation, be encouraging all their students to be writing in the
active voice."
Dr Rupert
Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 75 scientific papers and
several books. He was a Research Fellow of the Royal Society and Director of
Studies in Cell Biology at
Moore, R.
(2000) Writing about biology: How rhetorical choices can influence the impact
of a scientific paper. Bioscene, 26, 23-25.
Sheldrake,
R. (2001) Personally speaking. New Scientist,