"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

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I'm British, and I use "one" in formal writing - I'd say it's not uncommon in both formal speech and formal writing here. Personally, I find it very useful; I think there's concepts which can be expressed much more delicately with a strategic one, but it wouldn't work as a direct substitute for I, and would read very clumsily to me if used in that sense. I'd tend to use it as a more formal substitute for generic you or in situations where it's not clear the you is generic.

[eandh99.livejournal.com]

I'm in Canada - and I wish we had the same acceptance of "one" as Britain does. I find the structure much more adaptable and yet neutral than "you" in formal writing. It's not a substitute for "I", true, except in that very coded way of giving indirect commands, "one knows" "one feels" etc.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Yes, and in the sense that sometimes when one says well, one might think, one actually does mean I think. I find though I tend to use it most when I'm setting up a counter-argument that I'm then going to demolish, as I'm "One could argue ______; however [BAM!]" Or "One might assume..." is a good one. One is quite often wrong when it comes down to it ;)

[azurelunatic]

I <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 "one" so very much. Though I picked it up from John M. Ford's Klingons and C.J. Cherryh's atevi.