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Science is supposed to be objective fact, not based on the subjective
observations of an individual or group of individuals. Thus, using the
I and we pronouns are sometimes seen as too subjective a presentation
for academic writing.
However, a number of fields are changing their view on this. For
instance, I and we are generally just fine in Geology journals, and
there has been some movement in the Chemistry community toward using
I/we.
I can only speculate about the change in emphasis. Perhaps we are
experiencing a shift to a new academic writing philosophy: all our
"objective facts" do indeed come from our "subjective observations" as
individuals, so why not write as individuals performing experiments?
Or, maybe it's just because repetition of the passive voice can be so
deathly boring? : )
On Friday, January 30, 1998 11:05 AM, Chris Hamilton
[SMTP:chamilton -at- gr -dot- com] wrote:
> This is an offshoot of the first person thread. I understand that
> scientific and academic writing includes a lot of third person and a
lot
> of passive voice. My question is: why?
>
> Someone must have sat down at some point and said, "You know if we
write
> like this, we'll see x, y, and z advantages."
>
> What are x, y, and z?
