Writing Style in Education

Overview

At the sentence level, every discipline has different expectations in regard to what constitutes "good writing." Some fields, for instance, encourage use of the first-person "I" voice while other fields require that you avoid it entirely. Some disciplines encourage use of the passive voice while others strongly prefer the active voice in almost all situations.

This page addresses sentence-level conventions that are common when writing at the graduate level in the field of Education. Given that the range of genres within Education is sweeping, it is difficult (if not impossible) to point out broad conventions. However, the use of active vs. passive voice and first-person vs. third-person perspective are two distinct conventions of writing in this field that seem to map to a fundamental distinction within the genres.

Sentence-Level Writing Conventions

Passive Voice

The passive voice is used as a nod to objectivity, implying that the individual researcher’s perspective is not central to the information being presented. The following example of the use of the passive voice is excerpted from Claro et al (2016):

The 2012 student survey for the first time, to our knowledge, measured students’ mindsets about the malleability of intelligence using a short version of the standard instrument used by Dweck (15). Students who agreed or strongly agreed with statements suggesting that intelligence cannot be changed (i.e., 'intelligence is something that cannot be changed very much' and 'you can learn new things, but you can’t change a person’s intelligence') were categorized as having a fixed mindset, those who disagreed or strongly disagreed were categorized as having a growth mindset, and those who were uncertain were categorized as having a mixed mindset. A categorical system was used in graphical presentations for clarity, whereas a continuous standardized score was used in analyses.

When the author writes "were categorized as having . . ." the passive voice suggests that the act of categorization was not indeterminate or subjective; rather, another reasonable researcher would have likely made the same categorization decisions.

Active First-Person Voice

The active first-person voice is used to convey subjectivity, implying that the individual researcher’s perspective is central to the information being conveyed. The following example is excerpted from Rabin and Smith (2016):

The teacher candidates shared the classroom-management practices they wrote about in their Blueprint papers in audio-recorded in-class dialogues over the course of two class sessions. First, we recorded the candidates in small groups as they described their plans to one another. We collected and read the papers and created scenarios for discussion centered on issues we thought might arise for our candidates as they implemented their plans for their traditions, based on what we know about diverse students’ needs and novice teachers’ struggles with classroom management. We then recorded the small-group follow-up discussions over specific scenarios that could arise.

In this excerpt--and particularly in the selection starting with "We collected and read the papers . . ."--the active voice and first-person perspective telegraphs the idea that the researchers made these choices subjectively, that other reasonable researchers may have made entirely different choices.