The only paper that made me smile was Lazy Lynn who so obviously phoned it in by turning in one paragraph for a two page paper. Lynn may be lazy but she is honest, and she did not use the word “I”. I know she learned at least one thing in this course.
Is it part of this part of the narcissism of this generation, evidence of the poor state of our public schools, or lack of beatings for being an asshole as a child? I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but at this exact moment in time I wish I had hard copies of my student’s papers so I could ball them up and throw them at them. Or perhaps I should make all of my comments on their paper along the lines of “your content development gives me a headache and drives me to drink” or “if you really think this then your parents must have been brother and sister”. If they don’t try why should I?
Not to minimize your pain, FML, because as an all-too-frequent reader of undergraduate "writing", I share it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in some disciplines (mine, for example), it is perfectly acceptable to write in the first person. There *may* be some legitimate confusion mixed in with the terminal inability to follow instructions.
There is however, no excuse for the passive voice...
The habit isn't necessarily narcissism. It may, in fact, be humility of a sort. I've had many students indicate that they don't feel that they're expert in the subject enough to make an argument that is not preceded by a first-person qualifier ("I believe that..."). They're uncomfortable using a more authoritative voice because they don't feel like authorities. Of course the related problem here is that they don't know the difference between expressing an opinion and making a factually-supported argument.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the odd "I think..." in a paper, especially when it comes from students who are tentative about expressing opinions in papers in case they are "wrong". HOWEVER, I got a whole pile of papers earlier this semester that were supposed to be literary analysis papers, but instead were steaming piles of personal anecdotes, viz "The mother in the story was a great character because she reminded me of my grandmother and the time my brother and me [sic] spent the summer in the country on her farm." And "this story made me feel sad because it reminded me of the time my boyfriend broke up with me."
ReplyDeleteI read the riot act to my class after I read those, asking them if I had given them any indication whatsoever that I cared about their feelings.
Alive and well is the passive voice in scientific writing. The appearance of objectivity is created by scientists when the passive voice is used instead of first person active. (The solution was mixed, samples were analyzed, etc.)
ReplyDeletePassive voice also makes journal articles harder to read, creating an artificial barrier to students trying to enter the field of science. This results in fewer scientists and thus higher wages for those of us who already have jobs. Sometimes, the wordiness of passive voice leads to an extra page added to the length of a journal article, which always looks nicer on the CV.
I have never understood the undergraduate proscription against the first-person pronoun. It is used by all writers in all genres, including peer-reviewed academic articles. The idea that you are supposed to write something without acknowledging that it comes from *you* is frankly kind of ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteHi FML: I would think it totally depends on what the assignment is and for what discipline. If my students are writing an essay and use "I," I'll only advise them to be a little more formal (not necessarily using passive voice, but referring to themselves as "the reader," in general) if it's an analysis of sorts rather than a narrative or some sort of personal response. Other than than that, I'd prefer the "I" to any passive lab report sounding prose.
ReplyDeleteI assign a lot of writing and don't mind the first person approach. I find sentences beginning "I will..." far preferable to those beginning "This paper will..."
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I despise the hypothetical second person: "if you were to start an airline...". Spare me.
I tell my students that, too often, use (or overuse) of the first person indicates that their papers are too heavily "writer focused" and need to be revised. I also tell them that they should be aware of what their various professors expect when it comes to second- and first-person and adjust their writing accordingly (audience awareness).
ReplyDeleteThey still don't get it and insist on using casual, conversational language and first- and second-person pronouns in papers I've assigned as strictly academic.
I blame standardized testing. One of my part-time gigs is grading those benighted things. The students get higher points for being able to "relate the story to a real-life situation or experience." Which results in nearly-identical, first-person narratives involving grandmothers, dogs, and returning wallets, all in the very proper first person, all damn boring. And then they show up in our college classrooms...
ReplyDeleteI have the opposite problem: my students invariably have internalized their previous instructors' proscriptions against the first person, so they end up using incredibly clunky and awkward circumlocutions, such as "In the opinion of this writer..." I would a thousand times prefer that they use "I" when that is clearly what they mean.
ReplyDeleteThey also seem to have internalized dozens of other non-rules from their high school English teachers ("never begin a sentence with "because"; "all essays must be written in the past tense"; "a thesis statement must always contain a list of exactly three items," etc.) For some reason, they never appear to cling to anything I say with anything like this level of tenacity.
If you are talking about those students who begin every single sentence with "I found... I think.. I read in our book...." then I *totally* feel your pain. I would like to share, though, the pain of a student yesterday who turned in a 5 page paper using that format, but refusing to use the word I. Instead, he wrote "this writer found... this writer observed... In preparing this paper, the writer notes..."
ReplyDeleteI wanted to break his skull.
In philosophical writing, it is standard to use "I" in papers; in the introduction, and beyond.
ReplyDeleteFor example, when introducing particular kinds of papers, one might begin something like, "In this paper I will address topic X. First I will explore So and So's argument Y, then I will argue Z..."
@Fretful: RIGHT? What is WITH that? I've had some students in classes with me ALL year (in a sequence of classes) and they STILL revert to: "in high school, I learned..." even when I've drilled into them over and over again that we no longer do five-paragraph essays and that they don't have to preview their three main points and can branch away from that now that they're required to do less formulaic work. What is it about high school English rules that seem to stick forever?
ReplyDeleteIt's when students only support their essays with personal opinion (in the first person of course) where I have trouble.
ReplyDelete"I think the Bay of Pigs was a terrible idea."
Do you? Jesus, tell me more.
Sorry, I can't jump on the "I believe ..." bandwagon.
ReplyDeleteYes, slavish devotion to the third person and passive voice can lead to some unwieldy phraseology, e.g. "The author has demonstrated ...".
Still, as a behavioral scientist whose assignments are usually on the theme of "Use empirical research to examine a common misconception in the discipline," it makes my teeth itch to see conclusions begin with "In my opinion ...". It isn't supposed to be about YOUR opinion but a thoughtful compilation, presentation, and analysis of research evidence.
It's impact should be self-evident without the storytelling.
And please spare me the "In this paper, I will ...". I gave you the assignment. I KNOW what you will do in the paper.
Well, I at least know what you are SUPPOSED to do ...
Where on earth do professors allow "The author will...blah blah blah"?
ReplyDeleteNEVER self-reference in an academic essay.
Or were all my comp/rhet profs in grad school just oddballs.
Yeah, in my writing classes we teach a variety of approaches, some where relevant personal experience is useful (and where the first person makes perfect sense), and other more academic kinds of discourse where third person is mandatory.
ReplyDeleteOh, and NEVER "the author will prove." Are you kidding me?
One other thing that makes me crazy. Why the passive sentence pissiness. Sometimes passive sentences are the best way to emphasize something.
"Thousands were left homeless by the tsunami."
Also, generally, as a writing proffie, I try to avoid as many hard and fast rules as possible...
Count me as another writing proffie trying to get them to think in terms of context, conventions, etc. rather than universal rules.
ReplyDeleteIn my writing-in-the-disciplines classes, I'm perfectly happy -- in fact I want -- to see "I" at the beginning of a sample/methods/procedures section ("In order to [find out whatever they were trying to find out] I/we [quick summary of methods to be described in later detail later in the paragraph]") Such a sentence makes for a much clearer transition from the review of literature that often precedes such a section than something that begins along the lines of "the present research examines," leaving the reader somewhat uncertain about whether the review of lit is continuing, or has ended. And I'm quite confident, despite what some of their other proffies may have told them, that this approach is supported by the APA manual (which calls for the use of "I" or "we" when it enhances clarity).
On the other hand, I, too, don't want to see "I believe" in academic writing of this sort; instead, I want students to state what the patterns in their evidence show, with a bit of hedging where appropriate ("at least in this relatively small convenience sample. . ."). I very much want them to claim authority -- not more authority than they can justify, but authority as the experts on their own primary data set, however quirky, unrepresentative, or otherwise flawed it may turn out to be.
But if they're writing for NPR's "I believe" series, or telling a personal story, either as a straight narrative or as evidence in an essay in format that allows for such evidence, I expect to see liberal use of "I."
I once worked with a student in our university's (generally good) interdisciplinary-studies-for-adult-learners-finishing-a-degree program who had been told that "formal academic writing" contains *no* pronouns whatsoever. And she was supposed to be writing a proposal for an independent project, which itself would incorporate a memoir. I gave her one of my older editions of Joseph Williams' _Style_, which helped a bit, but we were still both tearing out hair out trying to invent ways to write in this supposedly "formal academic" mode, which bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything I'd ever written, including in several successful fellowship/grant applications, a dissertation, and some published work.
@Beaker Ben: Boo-yah! I have been on a one-person campaign for the return of the first person in science writing. I _hate_ the prevailing style we use to publish research. It is stupid. It gives a false impression of authority and objectivity. It lends support to the argument that science is totally value-neutral. It is not. Science _tends_ towards objectivity, _aims_ for objectivity, yet does not achieve perfect objectivity, because actual people are doing the science. I fear, however, that this is a losing battle, because so many practicing scientists have never been taught a damned thing about writing. They avoided the writing-based humanity classes in college.
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