I am a dumb functionalist in both design and writing
On Apr 7, 2013, at 6:08 PM, Tiiu Poldma <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> If your thesis is about first person perspectives, constructivist paradigms, or your position as a researcher, by all means use first person, if this appropriately supports what you are saying and the logic of the arguments that you bring forward.
my suggestion is to write in the first person when you are writing about yourself and to write in the third person when you are writing about others. If you are addressing the reader directly, second person does that.
The only big question for me is how to handle transitions from first person plural (in join authored writing) to first person singular (or third person?) when referring to just one of the authors. We have been writing this paper but one of us (Gunnar) hates it. or We have been writing this paper but I (Gunnar) find it silly. or ?
Being specific and accurate is important: People think academics write in a needlessly obscure manner. Wait. Which people? Most people outside the academy think. . . . Now we know what the claim is. Otherwise, is that two people in a bar in Nuevo Laredo, fifty million people in Pakistan, or half of the sophomores in my graphic design program?
"It is thought that academics write in a needlessly obscure manner"--the dreaded passive voice--is worthy of rejection because of the lack of specificity but many language wonks hate passive because of a lower energy level. Passive voice seems to imply that things happen as opposed to people or other forces causing them. That may naturalize the statement in a manner that is rhetorically advantageous but it is hoped that academic writing can be more than a rhetorical ploy.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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