Don't 'I'-jack the writing
When we say 'I'-jack, we are playing with the word 'hijack'. Unlike writing a blog or a letter, in scientific writing, we should never use the first person 'I'. For example, we would never say:
- In my opinion high cholesterol is linked to...
- I think cholesterol is caused by...
- I believe saturated fats cause high cholesterol...
Instead, we use an objective tone and the research of others to support claims. When we are objective, we are distant observers using data, research and figures.
When we are subjective, our writing is opinionated, based on personal ideas and beliefs. It might be biased and unfounded and certainly does not have a place in scientific writing.
A more objective way of presenting academic writing would be:
- A study by Smith and Brown (2006) found high cholesterol is linked to
- A study of 500 middle aged Americans living in Florida found cholesterol is caused by...(Smith and Brown, 2005)
- Saturated fats cause high cholesterol because of...
Reflective versus objective writing shows the tone of writing in various genres or types of writing (reflective writing, the precis, the essay and the report). Writing the article review shows you how you can take a critical approach when writing about the work of others.
We hope you find these useful.
posted by Andrea Duff at
1:45 PM
3 Comments:
I am concerned that this blog should state as an absolute rule that one should never use personal pronouns in scientific writing. To test my belief that the use of personal pronouns is in fact not uncommon in scientific writing, I went to the pre-eminent science journal, Nature, and every single research article I looked at used personal pronouns. Mostly they were multiple author papers, so "we" etc. was used, but "I" was used in the two single author papers I looked at. Some of the results of my brief survey are as follows:
Two author paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7116/full/nature05199.html):
"We show here that this Tibetan reservoir of elastic strain energy is drained in proportion to …"
"In Supplementary Information we present additional GPS data from …"
"We attempted initially to emulate the observed velocity field …"
"Our study indicates that …"
"We assume that frictionless aseismic slip occurs …"
"Although we tested several different northern boundaries for the model, we ultimately selected a northernmost …"
Many author paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7116/full/nature05230.html):
"We assembled the sequence reads with …"
"We failed to find any clear case of genes characteristic of the algal lineage …"
"… we observed that …"
Single author paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7115/full/nature05203.html):
"Here I present a global palaeomagnetic compilation of …"
"Here I revisit the evaporite palaeolatitude test …"
Single author paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7112/full/nature05157.html):
"Here I explain the mysterious absence or rarity of …"
"Here I note that …"
"The name I suggest for the material that accumulates on the surface is 'smust', a contraction of 'smog + dust'. "
While all the above examples could be rewritten to remove the personal pronouns, to do so in my opinion would lead to more "turgid" writing, and while the use of personal pronouns can result in subjective writing, the above examples show that this is not necessarily the case.
In addition, there are instances in scientific writing when to not use a personal pronoun would lead to ambiguous writing. Take for example, "It is conjectured that this might occur because of …". Who’s doing the conjecturing? The author? Other authors? If other authors, where’s the reference?
Thus I would argue that while we should teach students about the differences between objective and subjective writing, we should not perpetuate the misconception that the use of personal pronouns necessarily leads to subjective writing (though we should warn undergraduate students to check whether or not their lecturer has an objection to the use of personal pronouns). However, whether it’s a good idea to warn inexperienced writers against using personal pronouns because they are likely to misuse them and might not be ready for a sophisticated discussion of when their use is appropriate, is another question …
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Anonymous, at 2:55 PM
Thanks for your comment, David. You are quite right - personal pronouns ARE used in some scentific writing, although I note that in the examples you provide the convention seems to follow where (as you say) there is more than one researcher working in perhaps a team situation.
You do make the point (and I think this is where lecturers take exception) that personal pronouns are overused.
One example might be:
'I believe Australia is a rich country because many Australians have television sets.'
Compared to:
Smith (2000, p. 7) points to the fact that television ownership can be an indicator of material and personal wealth. Recent statistics collected by McNair (2005) indicate that three out of four Australian households have more than two television sets. Therefore...
(This is, of course, an example of social research as distinct from scientific research but you might get an idea of where I'm coming from.)
Thanks for your post
Andrea
By
Andrea Duff, at 4:55 PM
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
By
Writing a Research Paper, at 8:42 PM
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