"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

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I was taught that it is acceptable as long as it is used consistently throughout the paper and not just once or twice, as that can be jarring to the reader. I have seen some truly remarkable academic works done this way in recent years - Svetlana Boym's The Future of Nostalgia comes to mind.

Personally, I think that there is a trend in the humanities towards scholarly work becoming more readable and accessible, and as that happens, it will become more common. In this vein, I have tried to do it and discovered that it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I'm hoping to work on that during my PhD.