I am writing my thesis, which is conformed from published articles signed by other authors apart from me; should I differentiate my own contribution in my thesis? I am using 'we' as the same way articles were written. Indeed I am copying and pasting my articles...
Neither I nor We is appropriate. The better way is to use passive voice e.g. "it is shown" or "it is implied," or to use phrases referring to your study, e.g. "the present study," "this study," etc.
If your work is part of a team effort, you should note that in your thesis and explain. Your particular work should then be written in one person. For example:
"This thesis is based on work done with , , , and myself. It is a summary of the individual research done by the author while working within this team framework. The author refers to work being done individually as "we" instead of "I" because without the dedication and contribution of the entire team, the individual research presented within this page would not have been possible."
Or something to that effect. Others may have another way of wording it, but as long as you credit your team, while informing the reader that everything in the thesis is your individual work, it should not be a problem.
Good luck with your thesis. :)
Also, individual advisers have different ideas so don't forget to run this past your thesis panel as well. They, ultimately, have the final say.
First of all I wish you all the best with your thesis work... This is a usual problem faced by almost each one of us while writing thesis or any articles. However, you can avoid both 'we' and 'I' by remodifying the statement as an observation. For example, instead of 'We observed that...' just modify it as 'It was observed that...' or '..... changes were observed....'. This will eliminate most of the problems... "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White will be a very useful guide for writing... writing in style....
yes, i agree with sunil, generally first person is to be avoided in thesis writing,if you cant use passive as suggested, you may use word researcher/s in active constructions. First person like"i" and "we " are not so much acceptable in formal writing.
The use of I or We does not sound good, and the the reader will not be comfortable with the same.
Just use " It was observed (or ) The compound showed....., This makes the reader understand well and also interesting.
Tone in writing is very important since it also embodies credibility and certainty of the writer towards the subject-matter. It could also show one's fairness or prejudice about a certain topic. Hence, it is advised to avoid using first person pronouns (also the second person pronoun 'you') especially in formal paper writing to build a credible, authentic stance; an 'impersonal tone' it is. It is always a principle in writing that we write for a particular audience (one does not write for one's self), so, it is a must to think of, 'who will be the readers?'. Therefore, our credibility as a writer (our voice as we speak in print) should be well-taken care of.
The theses for the award of any (Research Degree) is supposed to be individual work or contribution made by the single person and the research guide will give suggestion or modify your thoughts. generally the project work will be undertaken by group of pupil for part of curricula. nature of work will decide whether you use i or we..
At the University of Sao Paulo we often use we, since we are using several authors and decoding their thoughts. Therefore, there are many voices that are there.
No research is the product of individual, though it is branded as such. It is better to acknowledge others as we refer many authors and quote many people. Nevertheless, inference is the individual's knowledge. Throughout the thesis, one can use 'We', except in inference part.
Using the passive is very professional, although "we" is very common.
About the articles, always use references, it avoids a lot of troubles.
Success!
Quite interesting conversation. Until I started getting involved in Hedging and Boosting in scholarly writing, I found the use of either unclear. These days I use I comfortably when I take responsibility of what I express. We in a thesis that is written by an individual tends to domineer the reader. Other scholars think that use passive voice results in ambiguities occasionally. As others have accurately pointed out, every university has their style and everyone should respect the method they graduate school expects.
Neither I nor We is appropriate. The better way is to use passive voice e.g. "it is shown" or "it is implied," or to use phrases referring to your study, e.g. "the present study," "this study," etc.
Depending on the context one can use either "I" or "we" but most academic works , in my opinion, should rely on using "we)..I favor that.
In fact some scientific journals publishers ask authors to explain everyone's contribution. It's similar to the credit system used in the end of the films. In that way you can stay your piece of work in the whole study.
The Ph. D. Thesis is the product of a single person, although it is supervised by one or several researchers. The thesis describes the work accomplished by the postgraduate and includes his/her personal interpretation and discussion of his/her results. Thus, the thesis is written in first person (I). A different matter is the shaping of the thesis results into papers when more authors may be involved (supervisor, collaborators, ...).
I agree that you should use 'I' - it may be one of the last times you can do this ... .
I like "I" best if it is only you who is writing the piece (which is true in your case of a single authored thesis). If you talk about research you conducted together with others, you want to use "we" in these situations even in a single authored publication. "The researcher" or ways of getting around the question altogether sound horrible to my ears. However, what counts, obviously, is not what we here think and suggest, but what your supervisor wants you to do. Ask her/him.
While there is no set practice, I have always written my research articles (which had more than one author) and my text books (all of which have been published jointly) in the third person.
The "I" or "we" are best used when a paper invites us to one's personal reflections or integration given a topic. If it is formal, academic, or a degree paper, then it is recommended to use the third person. In this case, writing thesis in the third person signifies our academic humility - that we claim nothing that originated from us; we are just instruments of discovering things.
Good morning, everyone! That's really a good topic to discuss... Look at what I found:
http://applij.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/343.short
Best regards
Marcia Lygia, from USP / Brazil
The full article file, I hope I can manage the sharing...
Marcia
Dear Judit. I think we may personalize our text without using the first person in our texts. However, we may use this pronoun when we are analysing our data our when we wanr to enfazise actions we did buy ourselves.
Whether to use "I" or "we" can be argued, but "copy-paste" is plagiarism, and a far more serious issue.
Dearest Navjeevan: I agree. We can call plagiarism as "a serious crime" to the academe!
I am organizing my thesis as a series of papers already published. I do not see trouble in copying-pasting them. Although in some of them I am not first author but supervisor, he gave me permission to include them. My University has not informed me about including an statement on my thesis clarifying my own contribution (my mates didn't do it) but I am doing it. I suppose my supervisor will state this in a kind of transparent document (for departmental internal use) which I will not have access to read it, so it is better to include a kind of declaration in my thesis, I hope he will agree with that.
Of course I am using the passive voice, but presenting results I use 'we' and when I explaining methodology too just int he same way the concerning papers were published. Now, I am feeling the need to stand out my own work. I just do not want to write '' We performed a Monte Carlo simulator...' , I would rather 'I performed a Monte Carlo....' I did it myself, it was a lot of work.
The responses to this post indicate a wide variety of positions which I think have a lot to do with your discipline. Anthropologists who write about their own subjective impressions and experiences of doing ethnographic fieldwork will use 'I'. This is also a conscious effort to embrace the subjective position, to show that 'you were there'. While anthropology often studies the 'other' this is really a process of finding out more about your own culture. It is a highly reflexive process.
It has to do with the discipline but since the thesis is an academic requirement, I advice you to get your advisors' recommendation.
Judit, whenever I use my own past production, I cite the source in the references. That's the direction I was advised to follow by my Ms supervisor.
I am also witing my thesis and using passive sentences, so don't need use subject :)
Dear collegues, good morning
The language offers us expressions that can be used in these cases. For exemple: adjectives and adverbs are classes of words that help us to personalize the text, as well as "it seems that" and others. I don' t know your mother tongue, but in mine, Portuguese, we have the pronoun "se" that impersonalizes the subject of the sentence, then it' s easier to write without using "I" or "we". If you know French, you may think in the pronoun "on" of that language and understand our "se" quite in the same way. In English there is the use of the passive, but it is different from our possibilities in Portuguese.
Although I have no problems to use the expressions my language offers to personalize or not my text, mainly because I' m professor in this area too, this discussion is a real problem for me, and I really do not agree with the rules imposed. Please, understand what I say: I can't agree that after having made a big research, sometimes for years, completely alone, in the end of it, when I' m going to show it to the academy, and to the world, I have to say "us"! In others words: I state that I' m not its author.
Great, Maria Emilia, I plenty agree with you! But what some mean when they advise the use of "we" in accademic publications is that we are never alone in our findinds, in our journey, either our supervisors, colleagues or friends' comments are extremely valuable, sometimes the smallest ones change our direction of thoughts in a very surprising way... I want to tell you all about the wonderful Anna Rachel Machado, gone forever recently, she changed my Ms. research and "my life" beautifully! Thanks to her suggestions now I'm a PhD student at USP !!! I could never have imagined that!
What format are you using?
APA or MLA?
Consult those sites as you will continue to get "hundreds" different opinions.
What does your school require?
I like the royalty part :=)
check
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
or
http://www.mla.org/
Better yet, work with your advisor.
When the work is yours, use "I", always cope with your responsibility.
In Catalan: "Noia, has de pencar amb les teves obres, qui la fa, la paga" :-)
My supervisor long back in 1970s advised me to avoid first and second person in thesis, while in writting a book it is alright.
from web site http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html
''One important stylistic choice is between the active voice and passive voice. The active voice ("I measured the frequency...") is simpler, and it makes clear what you did and what was done by others. ''
I remember reading a transcribed lecture by Herbert Marcuse (for the Dialectics of Liberation conference) many years ago in which he used "we" throughout. It was a great speech and his use of "we" was very reassuring.
I think in thesis/dissertation one should use I rather than WE, as it should be that persons NOVEL approach to a specific problem,, That particular single individual get degree based on that novel work.
When it comes to publishing paper or book, then WE is the suitable word as all the individuals get credit.
To Robin: I am dealing with my thesis but not a conference speech or submitting a paper
Judit Camacho, It seems that you are doing a Qualitative Research which is mostly subjective by nature and so you can readily use I and We. You should definitely present your own observations and criticisms on articles. In Quantitative research you are suppose to present the thesis in Third Person, Singular and Past Tense. In Qualitative research such restrictions are not there.
In response to Servat Shirkhani: I would avoid passive constructions as much as possible, because they are frequently clumsy - thus reducing legibility - and can result in very lifeless texts. Use active constructions wherever possible. Omit any words or phrases that are not necessary and, if possible, shorten long sentences. I think that when we write, we should always strive for clarity and remember that we are trying to communicate with others.
Who is marking your text? Maybe you could ask him/her this question?
Not until I submit my thesis will I know the members of the tribunal. My director of thesis doesn't care about the use of pronouns.
You can't use "I" or "We" in Thesis writing. You can use the " Researcher", " The investigator" like words. This is the rule using in India.
Yes, I accepted it. Because here, in India we following like that method. But for blogs, we are regularly using "I suggested, I wondered, I found ...etc.
I've just been looking through the Internet, and this really does seem to be a controversial question. The following site argues in favour of using the first and third person in theses, e.g.: http://writing.engr.psu.edu/ (contributors from various US universities, which can be very strict on questions of style). But there are other sites which consider it taboo.
I believe we have different paradigms. Whatever fits and does not defeat the purpose.. :)
thesis is individual effort guided by the research director. the ultimate degree will be awarded to the scholar's name. you are supposed to use 'I' only. if it is project report involved others also you can use WE. For more sophistication presentation you can use researcher/investigator like that.
It truly depends on a combination of the discipline AND the manuscript format that you must use...(i.e. there is a style guide for every format that offers precise guidance on this very question). I recommend an effort to read/browse those who came before you in the same/similar niche and craft your rhetoric to mimic successful theses/dissertations by your predecessors.
Use of the first person is accepted and preferred in some research in the humanities. Qualitative methods in particular would normally be written in the first person so it depends on a range of factors and practices within disciplines.
Do not to personaloize. Be formal, and more polite with passivization, to keep the safe side.
It ȋ̝̊̅ƨ̣̣̣̇̇̇ better †☺ state Чºυя findings as 'It is/was shown that' or 'findings from the present study suggest' etc
Others contributions should be cited, dated, and numbered by reference to the page, to be respected. In the review of literature section you can make use of others writings, not in the form of copying and pasting, though. The framework is your, arrangement of content is yours, preferences should be yours. Just with respect to the writers, you yourself write, makes no difference whether you are under the copywrite or not.
Judit Camacho: Given all the different responses, I think you will have to trust your own intuition on which approach is the most appropriate for you.
Both "I" and "we" are used in active constructions. I don't understand the point you are trying to make.
I agree. And a certain degree of politeness and sensitivity to other people's feelings, too.
I remember a musician once responding to a member of the audience who said that he couldn't hear the music.
The musician replied: "Then I shall play more quietly."
- Those who want to listen will listen and hear.
passive voice is mostly encouraged. back to my institute, UPM, they urge you to use passive voice and you are not allowed to say i did......we believe, etc
It's a shame that these questions of style are imposed as if they were unshakeable rules. It is good to know the rules, but it is also good to break them.
Both are appropriate, depending on the kind of work. For your thesis, I would use "I" because you are a single author and the paper will not by peer-reviewed anonymously. For other papers (to be peer-reviewed), the "we" is used even by single authors to make it more difficult for reviewers to identify the source(s) of a paper...I think that is the only reason!?
Using passive voice was the given standard for a long time, I think. On the one hand, it should make scientific work less personalized and lead to an impression of more objectivity as compared to "my opinion" (which sounds less general, even if the passive voice says the same thing). On the other hand, it was for the same reason as the "we" in a peer-reviewing process. Depending on the journal as well as the discipline, it is still taken for the standard or seen as old-fashioned ;-)
You could also consult responses to my 2011 posts on the use of I and We (See Applied Linguistics Group). The post reads: The use of We in academic writing: Hiding behind your Mama's skirt?
We have a tendency to use WE when I is a good option (i.e. the author is one person) as in " We present data from a 350 academic papers..." " We may then conclude that (a)..." etc. or in cases like this "Though we have already garnered some predicaments, applied linguists ought to keep an eye on new edges stemming from...". Here WE is used on behalf of a community and I is less of an option. In the first two examples, we may be "hiding" from something. Hiding from what and why? Is this good use or abuse? (Notice that in constructing this post, I am also guilty of "hiding")
I would recommend you to use the 'I" instead the "We". I was in a defense and a committee member ask "Who is the we?" Maybe to avoid an awkward moment is better to use the "I"in your dissertation.
I think important considerations in terms of stylist usage are - Does your university and/or program have a specific style guide that they require? If not, do any of your committee members have a strong preference? Last, but probably least, is your personal preference... In my department all graduate papers are to be written using the American Psychological Association's Style - which does not support the use of any form of first person (I, we, you etc) address.
@ Robert: Ȋ̝̊̅ agree with you. It should all depend on the recommendation of the department/faculty/college or research ethic committee. Otherwise, supervisor's preference should be adhered to.
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