![]() My extremely informal recollection of some articles that are more than, say, forty years old is that the singular is used more often, so what she says may be true but for a different reason than simple pride. When my advisor suggested corrections, the most detailed and strongly-worded of them was to use "we" later, I asked another young professor whether one could use "I" and she said "Only if you want to sound like an arrogant bastard", and observed that only old people with established reputations can get away with it. I tried to use "I" in the first version of my thesis (in mathematics). Should I just follow scientific convention and use "we" although it is factually inaccurate or indeed write in the scorned-upon "I"? However, eventually I will need to refer to methods that I propose and choices that I have made. Still, I'm trying not do overdo this form. This form is often natural when describing mathematical derivations as the truth is objective and it suggests that I am taking the reader by the hand and walking her through the process. So far, I used the second form of "we" extensively that includes me and the reader. However, the alternative is to use the passive voice, which seems to be even more discouraged as it produces hard to read writing and indeed an entire thesis in the passive voice may be indigestible for any reader. Therefore it seems I should use "I", but this seems to be very unusual in scientific writing and even discouraged as one may sound pretentious or self-absorbed. However, I am writing a thesis which means I am the only author and I even have to testify in writing that the work is my own and I did not receive any help other than from the indicated sources. ![]() We propose a new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes. ![]() When the first person voice is used in scientific writing it is mostly used in the first person plural, as scientific papers almost always have more than one co-author, such as ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |