I - Avoiding 'I'

When writing academic English you are often asked not to use ‘I’, ‘the author’ or ‘one’ when referring to yourself as the writer, or to use ‘you’ when referring to your reader. This also extends to not using ‘we’ or ‘us’ when referring to yourself and your reader. The reason is that traditionally academic writers try to be as objective as possible when presenting their ideas and information. This includes not making an emotional appeal to their readers and keeping some distance between themselves and their readers. Not using ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ etc helps to achieve this distance.

QC Avoiding 'I'