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Subject:Use of the First Person -Reply From:Carol Van Natta <CVANNATT -at- ITC -dot- NRCS -dot- USDA -dot- GOV> Date:Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:42:26 -0700
Dan, you're running into hidebound tradition. For the record,
though, first person & active voice are generally preferable.
I was a tech. writer/editor for an engineering firm for 5 years,
and although our reports to clients were in first person, any
journal articles had to be in third person, because that's they
way it had ALWAYS been done, and no one at the journal
could/would make a policy decision to join the rest of us in
the 20th C. as far as style, readability, etc. Everyone points
to someone else as the person who "won't stand for it" -- the
editor says the engineer/authors won't tolerate the change,
the authors say the peer reviewers won't, the peer reviewers
say the audience won't, and the audience doesn't know who
to blame.
Until someone takes the bull by the horns, so to speak,
you'll probably have to bend to tradition and write your journal
articles in third person. Sigh.
>>> Dan Sabin <dsabin -at- ELECTROTEK -dot- COM> 1/30/98
9:19 am >>>
Hi,
I'm an engineer, and I recently submitted a paper to a pretty
well-known
standards organization. The reviewers rejected my paper
mainly for
stylistic reasons, especially as related to my use of the first
person
"we" when I was referring to myself and the other researchers
on the
project. For example, instead of saying, "The researchers
found...," I
often stated "We found..."
I was surprised that the reviewers reacted so negatively to
the first
person, especially as a friend who is a technical writer told
me that in
most business/technical writing, it's best to avoid the third
person and
passive voice. I thought using "we" would make my writing
more
accessible to readers, and I wanted to avoid the stuffiness
and
formalism of constantly saying "the researchers..."
According to the
reviewers, using "we" in a professional document is not an
acceptable
technical writing style.
I wonder what you technical writers have to say about
this...Is using
"we" inappropriate in a professional report that basically
summarizes my
research findings to engineering colleagues?
Just Curious,
Dan Sabin
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