Dear Anne,
There is another issue here which I do not think has been mentioned by anyone, viz. that there are different meanings of the terms "I/we" in an academic text. There is the professional I, the researcher's I (these roles may or may not be the same), and what I call the writer's I. I like to I teach my students to identify the various forms, and to have a more reflexive approach to their uses. In my opinion it is often better to make active use of the writer's I than to conceal it. One example is a (longer) master thesis where the student might need to remind the reader what she has written before, what comes next and so forth. In this context, phrases like "as I have argued" should be perfectly OK in most disciplines, but I know there are exceptions. Use of the other I's (researcher, professional) can sometimes be relevant, and sometimes used for stylistic purposes, but most often it is not (as many have pointed out). The private use of I has nothing to
do in an academic text, of course, but my point is that it is important that students understand that not all I's are about the private person.
Best wishes,
Ingerid
Ingerid Straume
Hellvikveien 149
1450 Nesoddtangen
Academic librarian, PhD
University of Oslo,
Reference and Research Section
Library of Humanities and Social Sciences
https://uio.academia.edu/IngeridSStraume
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Den man 2015-09-21 skrev Anne Wegner <[log in to unmask]>:
Emne: Use of we/I in academic texts?
Til: [log in to unmask]
Dato: Mandag 21. september 2015 15.05
Dear colleagues
Two questions for you. I teach academic writing, mainly to
PhD students from difference scientific areas at various
German universities. One of the things I teach is that it is
generally ok to use “we/I” in academic texts, while
pointing out that its use does slightly depend on the area
in which one is working or the journal for which one is
writing. However, my daughter said that during her recent
Bachelor studies (Durham University, political sciences),
she was mainly writing, and being expected to write, in the
passive voice, avoiding we/I. I have two main questions
related to this:
1) Am I the only one getting my workshop
participants to use we/I in an English academic text? If so,
I'd better stop!
2) What do academic texts in other
European languages generally contain - we/I or passive
voice? In a German academic text, the use of we/I is
generally frowned upon.
I would appreciate any comments and am happy to put together
a summary of any answers I receive.
Many thanks
Anne Wegner
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