Passive voice in academic writing

As a follow-up to my recent poll about the use of first person in academic writing, I recently ran a poll on the use of passive voice in academic writing. As I had some issues with my Twitter account, the poll accidentally got posted twice. For both polls, luckily, the answer is the same: most authors avoid the use of passive voice.

For me, avoiding passive voice is something I am working on, but I know I could (and should!) do better in that regard. This poll has reminded me of my problem with the passive voice (and I also sometimes write sentences that are too long when I use the passive voice).

Here’s the result of the poll and its associated wake: