It's been far too long since I've made a post, and my list of topics to write about grows with nearly each day. It was a very busy start to fall here at LSE! It's still just as busy, to be honest, but I can't put off the itch to write any longer.
This post will be relatively short and sweet, but there isn't an author out there who won't benefit from it. Whether you're a nonfiction writer of literature, an academic writer of scholarly papers, or someone who writes for fun, you need this threshold concept, this paradigm shift, this parted veil: Your paper doesn't propose anything. It doesn't argue anything. It doesn't suggest or find anything. You do.
Passive Voice and Anthropomorphism: Hiding the Author
In the sciences, folks are often told to write in passive voice or at least to avoid referring to themselves as the researchers and authors of any given study. This is so they can front the science and not themselves. Science is supposed to be unbiased, so what does it matter if "I found a positive correlation" or "a positive correlation was found"? To make sure that science isn't about the scientist, just elide the scientist altogether when writing about the findings---the thinking goes---and the science will be as objective as it truly is.
This is, of course, poppycock. Anything done by humans is inherently subjective and biased. Any study they create, and findings they interpret: subjective, at least in part. We can try to make study methods as replicable as possible, and we can try to be fair about our analyses, but all of that is still going through the filter of human knowledge and decisions, so there's at least a degree of subjectivity. It's okay. We've been doing great with our subjective experiences, scientific methods, and analyses for a long time. Some of them put us on the moon, even.
So don't blame the scientists, okay? But just know that there's a tendency in that direction, and if you don't have the full context, your boundaries get set in the wrong places and next thing you know, you're off the rails.
And by "off the rails," I mean "anthropomorphizing your text."
The American Psychological Association points to precisely this problem in their style manual. In the [flips to the front cover of the book] 6th edition of the APA style manual, section 3.09, they warn y'all: "do not attribute human characteristics to animals or to inanimate sources."
This means that the following things did not happen in your study:
"Previous research argues that new research is needed."
"This learning style leads students to better development."
"This study compares two phenomena."
Each one of these demonstrates an anthropomorphism. None of the grammatical subjects here are the actual agents of the actions (check out the verbs) described here.
The previous research is just words on pages; those words can't argue because the are the argument.
The learning style doesn't take students by the hand either literally or metaphorically; teachers use the learning style to do that, or students take the learning style and use it for their own development.
The study doesn't compare anything. The study is just words on pages. The researcher does the comparison, and the study is the means by which he or she does so. The article that the researcher writes about the study also doesn't compare anything; it is the comparison, in verbal form.
I correct this in academic writing all the time. Some of my publisher clients have told me to give up, and they're absolutely right. But it's still a concept worth considering. When it comes to anthropomorphized writing, where did the person actually doing the thinking and writing behind the text go?
You're Still in Charge of Your Writing
When you anthropomorphize your writing, you're kind of buying into the Romanticist idea that those words popped out of the sky, were filtered through your brain (passively), and appeared on the page. Convenient, if you want to be able to pretend as if your book is larger than life or if you want to disavow it later. Now, most of you aren't trying to do that when you anthropomorphize your texts. You're just looking for a quick way to describe your book's contents. Fair enough.
But think about it for a second. Imagine you've written a book (if you haven't; if you have, think about your last book). You're trying to describe the book on Amazon. You write: "This book explains that..." Wait. The book explains? No way. You explain. These are your ideas. Hit that delete button and try it again. "In this book, I explain that..." Still sounds a little too personal, too subjective? Delete key. "This book contains a detailed explanation of..." Now that's accurate. It's not even in passive voice!
So how might I correct those earlier examples?
"According to an analysis of previous research, additional research is needed."
"This learning style is used by teachers to guide students to better development." Or "teachers have used this learning style to guide students to better development."
"Two phenomena are compared in this study."
Yes, avoiding anthropomorphizing your text may require more words, but at least it's accurate.
PS: APA even allows for the use of first person to avoid passive voice and anthropomorphizing texts. To wit: "use a pronoun or an appropriate noun as the subject of ... verbs" that inappropriately attribute agency to texts.
