What should I call myself?
A pressing issue that often arises at the time of write-up is what to call yourself. Should you use "I", "we" "one" or try to hide behind a passive voice? Here are some examples:
- "I showed in an earlier paper [Bloggs, 2005] that ..."
- "We showed in an earlier paper [Bloggs, 2005] that ..."
- "The author showed in an earlier paper [Bloggs, 2005] that ..."
- "It was shown in an earlier paper [Bloggs, 2005] that ..."
Sentence 4 should always be avoided because it is in the passive voice. Sentence 3 sounds stuffy and stilted. So is it "I" or "we"?
Some authorities on technical writing advise against using "we" to refer to a single author but are happy for it to be used when there ar two or more authors. Thus the "we" that means "we the authors of a joint paper" is never objectionable. However a thesis is a solely authored work; if it is based on joint publications you need to be very careful about using "we".
"I" creates a franker, personal contact with the reader; in some technical areas it is less commonly used than "we" but "we" creates confusion for the reader. "We" can mean variously "me and other people who worked with me" or "me, the writer, and you, the reader" or simply "me" in academic voice. Marie-Claire van Leunen argues that the "we" that means "I" should only be used "by monarchs, popes and in front columns of The New Yorker".
The "we" that means "you and I, reader" is tricky depending on how it is used. As long as the reader is clearly following your argument then it is fine. Thus "we see", "we observe" and "we notice" are dangerous; this "we" is just another way of saying "obviously" and it may not be obvious at all to the reader. Be careful!
The "we" that means "everyone" is unobjectionable when what you state is common knowledge. "We do not know" is always safe, but "we know" may be very dangerous.
When "we"s and "I"s abound, it sometimes calls for clever writing. Consider the following (again from van Leunen):
- We have assumed that the set has cardinality at most n.
- I have assumed that the set has cardinality at most n.
- The proof only works if the set has cardinality of at most n.
Examiners will object to sentence 1 because you are not claiming ownership of the ideas. Some examiners may find sentence 2 too familiar, as if you are claiming an authority you have not yet demonstrated or earned (see
Ethos). Sentence 3 makes it is clear how your argument works (see
Logos).
Lord May, the president of the Royal Society from 2000-2005, had strong views on the subject. "I would
put my own view so strongly as to say that, these days, the use of the
passive voice in a research paper is the hallmark of second-rate work,"
he says. "In the long run, more authority is conferred by the direct
approach than by the pedantic pretence that some impersonal force is
performing the research."
So, myResearchSpacers: what are you using, "I" or "we", and why?