For the love of all that is good in the world, just use "we"

It's been a while since I've written anything about prose style, but I'm in the midst of providing feedback to a bunch of student science writers, and I feel compelled to speak up on behalf of beleaguered readers of English-language science writing. Yes, I'm talking to you, you more experienced, published science-writing professionals: set a good example for the grad students.

Just use we.

We.

And put it at the front of the sentence, so you can put a verb right after it.

We examine X.

We consider X.

We investigate X.

X can be simple; X can be complex. With "we [verb]" in front of it, X can throw pretty much anything at readers, and readers generally will handle X without getting annoyed. Or at least, without getting as annoyed as they would were X standing in front of a supremely boring passive-voice verb that doesn't show up until a mile further down the sentence road.

Generally, when I read students' science writing, I don't have to know much about the science to detect whether the prose makes sense. Sometimes, to tell whether my confusion is with the prose or my lack of scientific knowledge, I'll look up a term or phrase to see how more experienced authors use it.

Today, I Googled one such phrase. This led me several articles confirming the phrase's existence. One such article included this sentence:

Prospective applications of targeted compounds derived from display libraries in the discovery of targeted drugs and gene therapy vectors are discussed.

Dear readers, be honest: did you read the entire sentence from beginning to end? If so, did you understand it? If so, did you enjoy it?

Please, people, give in to temptation. I promise it's OK: use "we."

We discuss.

We discuss prospective applications of targeted compounds derived from display libraries in the discovery of targeted drugs and gene therapy vectors.

Readers might not adore the revision, but they won't want to bang their heads against a wall after reading it. Or at least they won't want to bang their heads quite so hard.

This has been a public service announcement. Feel free to complain in the comments.