Who Speaks for Science?
Grammar: Passive Voice
A Level 5 English lesson exploring science.
What's in this lesson
A Level 5 (advanced) ESL lesson on science, practising passive voice. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.
From the reading: Who Speaks for Science?
Picture a research paper arriving in the world. It has been written over three years, revised across fourteen drafts, and subjected to the quiet judgment of anonymous peer reviewers whose names will never appear anywhere near the work they shaped. By the time it is published — in a journal behind a paywall that most of the public cannot access — the finding it contains has already been distorted, compressed, and re-dressed for an audience that was never consulted in its design. The dissemination of findings, as scientists prefer to call this process, is treated as an afterthought. Yet it may be the most consequential moment in any piece of research.
Vocabulary
- accessible to
- credited with
- disseminated through
- obscured by
Grammar: Passive Voice
- Advanced passive
- The compound is believed to have inhibited cell growth. — distanced, formal attribution
- Impersonal passive
- It has been established that replication matters. — agent removed for authority
Discussion questions
- Which is more dangerous: a scientist who uses too much jargon, or a journalist who simplifies too much?
- Would you rather read a 40-page research paper or a two-paragraph summary you cannot fully trust?
- Is putting science behind a paywall ever justifiable, or is it always a failure of accountability?
Who Speaks for Science?
Grammar: Passive Voice
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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