{"id":412,"date":"2012-04-05T13:23:35","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T18:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/?p=412"},"modified":"2012-04-05T13:25:08","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T18:25:08","slug":"as-long-as-youre-boycotting-elsevier-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/2012\/04\/05\/as-long-as-youre-boycotting-elsevier-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"As long as you&#8217;re boycotting Elsevier anyway &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>why not add to your list all the journals on Allen Downey&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/allendowney.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/passive-voice-is-hoax.html\">Hall of Shame<\/a>? Elsevier may charge <a href=\"http:\/\/thecostofknowledge.com\/\">exorbitant prices<\/a>, but at least they don&#8217;t (as far as I know) require authors to write in the passive voice.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/2011\/10\/19\/the-passive-voice-can-be-used\/\">I&#8217;m not a big passive-basher<\/a>. I&#8217;m with <a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/blogs\/linguafranca\/2011\/10\/01\/mistakes-are-made\/\">Geoffrey Pullum<\/a>: teaching students never to use the passive voice is largely passing on a supersition. But the reverse rule (<em>always<\/em>\u00a0use the passive voice), which some scientists seem to have been taught, is far worse. The never-use-the-passive superstition is harmless, maybe even mildly helpful. The always-use-the-passive superstition, on the other hand, is wholly pernicious.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re a scientist, use the active voice whenever it sounds better (which is most of the time). If an editor won&#8217;t let you, fight back.<\/p>\n<p>For what it&#8217;s worth, I&#8217;ve never had an editor or referee complain about my use of the active voice in any of my papers. Fortunately, I don&#8217;t publish in the <em>ICES Journal of Marine Science<\/em> or the other hall of shame inductees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>why not add to your list all the journals on Allen Downey&#8217;s Hall of Shame? Elsevier may charge exorbitant prices, but at least they don&#8217;t (as far as I know) require authors to write in the passive voice. I&#8217;m not a big passive-basher. I&#8217;m with Geoffrey Pullum: teaching students never to use the passive voice &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/2012\/04\/05\/as-long-as-youre-boycotting-elsevier-anyway\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">As long as you&#8217;re boycotting Elsevier anyway &#8230;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/physicsbunn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}