I was taught that 'chiral centers' shouldn't be used in writing because chiral is a quality of the whole molecular, not the carbon. This was twenty years ago. Has the use of 'chiral centers' become more acceptable in the field?
I recently hosted a mini-workshop on the power of using the active voice in science papers. Yes! You can and should incorporate the active voice in your next science paper. There are two big reasons: clarity and conciseness.
We performed the experiment to determine if... is much easier than This experiment was performed to determine...
Passive voice CAN sound clunkier. Do you really want to fatigue your ready with a clunky sentence before they even get a chance to tackle the complex ideas you're presenting?
Today, I got an edit back for another review. The author had changed all my suggestions for the active voice to the PASSIVE VOICE! My guess is they didn't want to use first person pronouns. In case you're wondering, IT IS OKAY TO USE 'We'.
Rant officially over.