Abstract
The paper deals with use of active and passive verb forms in journal articles from the field of chemical engineering with focus on heavy metal ions removal from water. Three hypotheses about use of passive and active voice were formed and tested on six scientific journal papers in the above mentioned field - three experimental and three theoretical. The data were gathered using a comparative analysis of active and passive verb forms with a share of statistical analyses. Hypothesis 1 "In scientific papers from the field of chemical engineering passive voice is more frequent than the active voice." is not valid as the active verb forms outnumber the passive verb forms though not significantly. Hypothesis 2 "Passive voice is much more common in Methods and Discussion sections than in the Introduction or Results sections." can only be applied to experimental papers and is valid as the passive verb forms outnumber the active ones in the particular sections. Hypothesis 3 "There is no difference in usage of passive and active voice in theoretical and experimental scientific papers." is not valid as in experimental papers the passive verb forms outnumber the active ones, on the other hand, in theoretical papers this statement does not apply.
Highlights
1.1 Scientific writingsOne of very specific use of spoken and/or written language is its use in science
The generalisations made in the paper concerning the occurrence of active and passive verb forms were based on six scientific articles appearing in prestigious journals on heavy metal ions removal from water, which is a subdiscipline of chemical engineering
Three hypotheses were formulated on usage of active and passive voice in scientific papers
Summary
1.1 Scientific writingsOne of very specific use of spoken and/or written language is its use in science. In the paper by Mizera et al [25] passive verb forms outnumber active verb forms in the Experimental and Conclusion sections, yet there is no active verb form in the Experimental section. In the remaining Abstract, Introduction and Results and Discussion sections the number of passive verb forms is below the number of active verb forms, though in the Abstract and Results and Discussion sections the difference is only 1 and 2 verbs, respectively. In the paper by Tran and Roddic [26] passive verb forms outnumber active verb forms in the Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods and Results and Discussion section. In the remaining Conclusion section the number of passive verb forms is below the number of active verb forms, though the difference is only 1 verb. The mean percentage of the passive verb forms occurrence is 65.40 and the standard deviation is 13.29
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