I just read a scientific review where the author wrote in the 1st person, whereas I am more used to seeing articles written in the 3rd person style. What do you prefer and why?
Geoff - it depends on the context. If it's a 'hard, factual' academic article then it's best written in the third person. If, however, it's more of a 'softer science' i.e. humanities/social sciences and/or might be conceptual, opinion-piece, editorial, review, experiential etc - then writing in the first person is fine. I always tell students etc the same thing. It's fine to use first-person in certain contexts (such as those that I have just stated) - as long as you remain 'objective, neutral and balanced'. The 'risk with writing in the first-person, especially if new to academic writing, is that the author is more likely to be drawn into a more subjective, leading, emotive and colloquial form of writing - and very few academic repositories encourage that.
Geoff - it depends on the context. If it's a 'hard, factual' academic article then it's best written in the third person. If, however, it's more of a 'softer science' i.e. humanities/social sciences and/or might be conceptual, opinion-piece, editorial, review, experiential etc - then writing in the first person is fine. I always tell students etc the same thing. It's fine to use first-person in certain contexts (such as those that I have just stated) - as long as you remain 'objective, neutral and balanced'. The 'risk with writing in the first-person, especially if new to academic writing, is that the author is more likely to be drawn into a more subjective, leading, emotive and colloquial form of writing - and very few academic repositories encourage that.
Scientific texts should be written in objective language. Therefore, the use of the subjective mode, including the language in the mode of the first person, the personal mode should be reduced to the minimum necessary if it is indicated at all due to the results of scientific research presented, for example. However, everywhere there, in scientific publications, where the language is not necessarily required in subjective and personal mode, objective language should be used in the impersonal mode.
Best wishes
I agree that the preference should be to write in the third person.
There have been times when what I was writing was in the scholarly format, but also tutorial in nature, that I addressed readers in the second person.
Note that when writing in the third person, it is easy to fall into writing in passive voice. Active voice is stronger writing.
It's good question. Thank you all for your valuable answers. Mostly I use third person style in my writing.
Usually third person style is used, however it all depends on someone skill of writing and way of presentation.
In academic writing, third person style will be more academic and professional. I would also prefer this style of writing because we do not concern about the authors, we just focus on the main research area of the paper. However, I found out that even the academic writing experts who gave translation services in one of my papers used first person style. I was amazed by their writing styles.
It used to be strict third person and past/present perfect tense. But now the trend is shifting towards the first person and simple past tense, which make the paper easier to anticipate.
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