A critical analysis of the use of passives and relative clauses in Freshwater Ecology research articles

Within the framework of comparative studies, this paper discusses the use of passives and relative clauses in Freshwater Ecology research articles. In a corpus of 20 articles, a critical analysis was undertaken in order to highlight existing differences between native and non-native English-speaking authors, male and female researchers, time periods and journal categories. Results revealed non-native English research writers making more use of both passives and relative structures. However, only gender differences were found in the use of relative clauses, with female researchers employing more relatives than their male counterparts. Temporal differences are consistent with previous research that noted a shift towards a less formal discourse in scientific writing. From a didactic point of view, findings of this study are expected to broaden the knowledge of existing variations in scientific writing so that EAP scholars may develop practical writing strategies at the undergraduate or postgraduate level in universities worldwide.