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Comment by codethief | Hacker News Reader

IMO there's a good reason for passive voice in scientific literature: It's (literally) less subjective and creates some distance between the reader and the matter of investigation, which I personally find very useful. Besides, it's also often unclear who personal pronouns refer to in the first place. I have stopped counting the times I've seen single-author papers with phrases like

> We investigated X

(Who's we?)

and

> From equation (1.2.3) we see that,

(Who is "we"? The author? The author and other readers who are smarter than me? It cannot possibly be "the author and I" because I don't "see that" at all.)

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It's just a stylistic tradition in academic papers, similar to the royal "we". It's just a shorthand for "an author, or a group of authors, or the whole team/organization behind the research presented in this paper". You may think it's weird, but all traditions are weird when you think about it too much.

Also, your second "we" isn't even that, I think that's just good old-fashioned generic pronoun (because English normally doesn't allow a sentence without a subject). Basically the same as in sentences like:

> In Elbonia you are not allowed to drive after dark.

> Also, your second "we" isn't even that, I think that's just good old-fashioned generic pronoun (because English normally doesn't allow a sentence without a subject).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen “we” used as an indefinite pronoun. It’s usually “one”, “you”, or “they”, depending on formality and context.

In this context, it seems obvious to me that it stands for the author(s) and the reader, in a (maybe misguided) attempt to reduce the distance between them and involve the reader in the narrative.

> in a (maybe misguided) attempt to reduce the distance between them and involve the reader in the narrative

Thank you for putting it so succinctly, this is exactly what I meant to say: When I'm reading a scientific paper, I don't want to be involved in the narrative. Don't speak to me; let the facts speak for themselves.

This would be easy to do in active voice. I could write "I did this, and I was wondering why that anomaly turned up, so I did yadda yadda" without ever involving a "you".

It would be, but unfortunately it seems usage of the personal pronoun "we" is an invitation for general sloppiness.

> (Who is "we"? The author? The author and other readers who are smarter than me? It cannot possibly be "the author and I" because I don't "see that" at all.)

I would tend to prefer “we can see” (or “we can deduce”, or something to that effect) rather than “we see”. In the first case, it’s a statement that it is possible for you to see it too, if you think about it for a while. As you say, the latter is a statement of fact that is often wrong and can come across as condescending.

Not everyone in science is a native speaker of English. In many languages it makes no sense to say "can see", seeing implies the ability. Similarly with "can hear". In fact, as a Hungarian native speaker it was very weird to me when my English teacher insisted I insert "can"s before hear and see in my writing.

What do you mean you "can hear" the loud music coming from the neighbor's flat? Do you in fact hear it or do you just have the ability to hear it and can also switch it off or something? It's a quirk of English that I just had to memorize.

You can see it, if you look at it (the right way).

You can hear it, if you're otherwise silent and focus on the sound.

This is a good point. I have been guilty of using "we" when I carried out the experiment entirely alone. I suppose it's a lie intended to increase credibility, but I never really thought about it before.

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