GUIDELINES FOR USING "I" IN
ACADEMIC WRITING
Many students have been taught never to
use "I" in academic writing. While there may be important reasons for
this rule in some settings (e.g., to encourage writers to avoid the appearance
of bias), it does not strictly hold for advanced academic writing or
professional writing.
Examples of when it's far better to use "I" than to avoid it:
- To take ownership of and responsibility
for your own thoughts on an issue
- To make clear what aspects of your
identity and experience influence your perspective on an issue
- To expose your thought, reflection, or
learning process in arriving at a position
- To make active, living sentences where
they would otherwise be dull, passive, and overly abstract
- To treat your own lived experience as
qualitative data (e.g., to tell a story that offers insight into a larger
issue)
Questions? gray@tcnj.ed