"I" in academic and scholarly writing

[rm]

This is not a search for advice. This is a point of curiosity to me, because my education was sort of extreme and obsessive on this point, and it occurs to me that perhaps other fifth-graders were not scarred for life by writing papers that said things like "this author feels that Disney World would be an idea summer vacation destination for her family."

So, inquiring minds and all that....

[Poll #1563413]

Comments

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Alas, your poll does not include the option "... is never acceptable! *stomp* *stomp* *stomp*"

Instead, we used a combination of the passive voice and the plural. I've never given it thought before, so I will be charitable and say that it is not intended to be imperious but rather that if you are reading my paper then I am leading "us" through a maze of twisty little sub-arguments, all alike. However. I should point out that my training is in mathematics, so perhaps we had greater license to assume that our readers were amenable to being led like that since our writings were free of even mild opinions.

[natf.livejournal.com]

In my BSc Biochemistry studies, we used to write up lab notes from the "we did XX and YY happened" POV. We never had to write anything about out experiences or opinions - it was all about scientific empirical evidence

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

I was told in high school to use "we" as you are building on the the knowlage built up before you. In college, I was told to use "I" since you werwe the one running the experiment, did the research, or had the novel thinky thoughts.

I now prefer the latter. The reference object is the same, and I don't see the benifits of formality or prestige forms of using "this author."

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I was taught in high school not to do it, and as a result, I didn't do it as an undergrad either, even though I think that most of my lecturers found it acceptable. When I tutor, I tell my students that it is acceptable.

I've selected the "occasionally acceptable" options for the last two questions, simply because for stylistic reasons, it looks bad if you have too many "I" sentences, in the same way that too much repetition of any word looks bad. However, I think it is good for academics (and students writing academic essays), to claim agency over their work. I use "I" in my thesis, because it is work that I have done, and I don't want to engage in that process of self-effacement.

My mother is currently doing an undergraduate intro course, and she has been taught that "I" is unacceptable in formal writing.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I my applied social science field, the degree to which authors use "I" in their academic articles is often related to their methodologies and epistemological stance.

Those conducting ethnographic research in which the researcher is a participant observer must articulate their role and positionality in the study, which necessitates the use of "I". On the other hand, among those who do more post-positivist influenced quasi-experimental research, "I" tends be used less frequently (e.g. 'In this paper, I will show...') or replaced with passive or third person constructions such as "the authors".

In my past experience as an undergraduate writing instructor, the issue of whether and when to use "I" in academic writing would often come up. Since this varies across disciplines and genres within academic writing, we would compile corpus of writing in these areas and use a concordancer to search for the presence and function of the word "I" as a guide.

[canaana.livejournal.com]

I don't think this was ever formally addressed in any course I ever took at any grade level. But I find that, without its being directly addressed, I was trained never to use "I." I have not seen "this author" in any modern academic writing that I'm familiar with--the convention I'm familiar with is to use "one," e.g. "One almost believes that . . . "

I suspect this may vary from field to field. I can't imagine certain academic papers in Sociology struggling onward without the use of "I," as the researcher may be presenting references to her own research, and I'm under the impression that "this author" is terribly out of vogue. But I'm definitely out of my field on that one--literary analysis is always focused on the work that you're analyzing, so it doesn't really come up.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

"I" was never acceptable anywhere ever until I started taking classes in Women and Gender Studies, where they like you to socially locate yourself and acknowledge your standpoint and biases and motivations for research. I, personally, like that. That's why I have "white/female/bisexual/cisgendered/middle-class/college-educated/person with disabilities" on my LJ info page.

If you are talking about your personal experience and/or standpoint, it's entirely kosher. It seems to me like it would add value to your Bristol paper as an intro to the material, at the very least.

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

My degree is in anthropology, and it's common practice now for ethnographers to use the first-person, as well as explicitly talking about themselves. Whole positionality thing.

This may be some kind of weird exception, but I was taught in ethnography that attempting to erase myself from my accounts is dishonest, because I was there and I had reactions and the opinions I had about what I saw will affect my account of it. As a result, I should include that information so that the reader can get a better picture of what was actually going on (including, if necessary, filtering out BS that came from my assumptions or judgements or other personal stuff, which they can obviously do better if they have a better sense for me as an ethnographer and a person).

[mawaridi.livejournal.com]

This is what I have been taught in sociology as well, which has some overlap/similarities with anthropology. It's impossible to erase the researcher's influence from the data, so it is important to acknowledge the researcher's embodied participation in the construction of knowledge through the research process.

[moizissimo.livejournal.com]

Most of the papers I read (I'm doing cell biology) are written by more than one author. If anything, "we" is used! I don't ever recall seeing "this author."

[http://users.livejournal.com/eljay_/]

{delurks}

At school, I was taught never to use "I", "my opinion", "the author" - anything of that ilk. I still think that doing so in scientific writing sounds faintly unprofessional. No-one commented on my style at university. (Perhaps they would have if I'd used "I?) My first graduate supervisor held the same opinion as me.

However, the times, they are a'changin'. The passive voice is now apparently frowned on in many journals, mostly because it is thought to be difficult for non-native English speakers to understand. My current supervisor is not a tyrant on this matter, but he does tend to go through my papers removing my more contortionist passive voice and replacing it with "we". For some reason I find "we" more acceptable than "I"...

Personal opinion? I prefer first person to be used only in moderation, but whether this is merely habit is an excellent question.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

Science student so this may not work for other fields, but I is forbidden, with great giant red letters of forbidden. You may be allowed 'the authors' but only in the sense of 'the authors would like to thank'.

[ravenskye8.livejournal.com]

This was covered obsessively by my teachers in high school... Every writing assignment that wasn't creative writing, or otherwise meant to be something from a first person perspective had to be written without any references to self or others. It wasn't even acceptable to use the sample sentence you have above - I'd have to find some way to neutrally express that the arguments listed in the paper naturally lead to the conclusion that Disney World is an ideal vacation destination.

I found it so surprising when I got to college that no one seemed to care about such things unless I was writing a lab report for one of my science classes...

And argh - I hated always having to tell autocorrect to suck it up - yes, dammit, I want to write in passive form!

[mawaridi.livejournal.com]

In high school, I learned that "I" is never, ever, ever appropriate in an essay. In my undergraduate years I was told various things, from "I" is never, ever acceptable through "I" is okay sometimes to you should always use "I" and never "this paper" or passive constructions that erase the author. Currently, in my Honours year (in Sociology), it is being hammered into us constantly that we should use "I" whenever we share our opinions and that we should practice embodied research and take ownership of our own analysis. Which is kind of awesome :)

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

There wasn't an 'is acceptable if you feel like doing it and your tutor isn't one of those people against it', or even 'is empowering!' option for the last question, or I would have ticked one of those.

I actually did a subject titled 'academic writing' in my first semester at uni; it was an English subject and very enjoyable, and overall pro use of I, although we discussed the decision to use or not to use it in depth.