(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Hi folks! Question: how do we feel about the use of "I" in humanities papers? Someone (not a prof) has just read an essay for me and edited out every use of the first person. I understand that this is a valid response, but I personally find it frustrating. I think the passive voice is awkward, takes the life out of a text, and furthermore find it a dishonest attempt to obscure the context of the piece and its origin*; I find structures like "The rest of this essay will explore A, B, and C" idiotic. I have read plenty of articles that use "I" in the same way I do. Is this one of those "Do as I say not as I do until you have a PhD and tenure" things? I know it can be used badly, and sometimes I do (and then try to catch it on an editing pass), but I don't think every use of it ever is bad.

*This, if you were wondering, is What Is Wrong With Science Today.

Comments

[blythely.livejournal.com]

IME the life sciences and social sciences journals are really moving towards first person active voice (I and we) and even the biggies like Nature are okay with it (they basically make you write in your abstract "Here I/we show X "). I wrote my (bio anth) thesis in the first person and always submit papers written as I/we did/think. There's some interesting links and discussions here: http://blogs.nature.com/nautilus/categories/author_services/writing/

I think it's a dying-out formality / prescriptivist grammar trend in some ways, though I note the physical sciences / engineering still tend to encourage it (though again, not all). It wouldn't surprise me if there was holdout in some types of humanities subjects, because passive/third person constructions encourage you to be unnecessarily complex and no-one can criticise your ideas if they can't understand them ;) (couldn't resist, sorry). I'd take it as an opportunity to have a discussion with your prof TBH; it's a bit odd, it's not like you're doing mass spectrometry and wanting to pretend you're all ~objective~

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, other people have mentioned this - sociology and social work apparently have been very into first person for a long time and psych appears to be a holdout, which all seems unsurprising... Anyway, I think my department is fairly modern, though I will meet up with my prof and check it just in case.

no-one can criticise your ideas if they can't understand them ;)

So what you're saying is, I should cultivate the passive voice?! Heh.

That link's terrifically interesting, thanks! (Procrastination, here I come...)