Archive for the 'Writing' Category

The First Person Distraction

Posted in Writing on February 25th, 2007

We historians usually avoid using the first person “I” or “we” in our formal writing. We do so for the very good reason that the first person pronoun so often distracts the reader (and the writer) from the historical issues at hand.

More specifically:

  • There is no need to repeatedly state “I think” or “I argue” in a historical essay. You can simply state your points directly and concisely. The fact that you are the author implies that you believe what you are writing.
  • Historians generally strive to inhabit and represent the (often very alien) points of view of people from the past. We recognize that we cannot achieve objectivity, but we nevertheless need to make every effort to avoid conflating our own assumptions and values with those of other people from distant times and places. Avoiding the first person often plays a role in achieving this disciplined perspective.
  • The first person plural “we,” which I am using appropriately in this post, should also be avoided in most cases. For instance, it confuses the historical issue to say that “we” invented a new form of republican government (in the 1780s) or to say that “we” liberated African American slaves (in the 1860s). The fact is that “we” also opposed the American Revolution and “we” fought to expand and preserve slavery. The “we” — in all of these contexts — is so imprecise as to be meaningless.
  • Developing writers frequently lapse into the first person when they are struggling to articulate a main point or to create a transition. In such cases, the first person “I” is literally an evasion of the writing challenge at hand.
  • None of this is to say that you should never use the first person in a historical essay. Historians do routinely use the first person in prefaces and introductions when they are discussing why and how they did their research. Furthermore, historians do sometimes need to write about personal experiences. The first person should be reserved for such special occasions, rather than interjected into analyses of the far removed past.

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