Many academic institutions are not big fans of writing in the first person. For some, writing in that manner makes writing subjective.
This is reflected in how students, particularly in secondary schools, are trained to write. Teachers I work with are often surprised that I advocate, at times, invoking the first person in essays or other assessment in their subject areas.
The role of the author in academic writing is to show his or her argument in a dispassionate and objective way. The personal opinion of the author has no place in this type of writing.
As noted in Strunk and White’s highly influential Elements of Style – (first published in 1959) the writer is encouraged to place themselves in the background.
While this is very reasonable and scholarly, it seems that the times are now changing, as writing in the first person perspective is “becoming more acceptable in academia” today.
More details about this over at The Conversation.
(Image Credit: janeb13/ Pixabay)
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This bothered me even back in college in the 1970s. One professor hated the "third person" rule and the passive voice even more. "Some subjects were excluded for undetermined reasons." Yeah, who did that? Who? Someone must have determined that!
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