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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