Why First Person Is Important in College Writing 183
2. Clarifying Who’s Saying What
A clear description of your perspective becomes even more important
when your stance has to incorporate or respond to someone else’s. As
you move into more advanced college writing, the claims you respond
to will usually belong to scholars. Some papers may require you to
spend almost as much time summarizing a scholarly conversation as
they do presenting points of your own. By “signification,” I mean little
phrases that tell the reader, “This is my opinion,” “This is my interpre-
tation.” You need them for two big reasons.
First of all, the more “voices” you add to the conversation, the more
confusing it gets. You must separate your own interpretations of schol-
ars’ claims, the claims themselves, and your argument so as not to
misrepresent any of them. If you’ve just paraphrased a scholar, mak-
ing your own claim without quite literally claiming it might make the
reader think that the scholar said it. Consider these two sentences:
“Wagstaff et al. (2007) conclude that the demand for practical science
writing that the layperson can understand is on the rise. But there is
a need for laypeople people to increase their science literacy, as well.”
Is that second claim part of Wagstaff’s conclusion, or is it your own
reflection on the implications of Wagstaff’s argument? By writing
something like, “Wagstaff et al. (2007) conclude that the demand for
practical science that the layperson can understand is on the rise. I
maintain that there is a need for laypeople to increase their science
literacy, as well,” you avoid the ambiguity. First person can help you
express, very simply, who “says” what.
Secondly, your perceptions, and therefore your interpretations, are
not always perfect. Science writing can help me illustrate this idea,
as well. In the imaginary observation report I refer to above, the re-
searchers may or may not use first person in their methodology section
out of respect for the observer effect, but they are very likely to use
first person in the discussion/conclusion section. The discussion sec-
tion involves interpretation of the data—that is, the researchers must
say what they think the data means. The importance of perspective
is compounded, here. They might not be right. And even if they are
mostly right, the systems scientists study are usually incredibly com-
plex; one observation report is not the whole picture. Scientists, there-
fore, often mark their own interpretations with first person pronouns.
“We interpret these data to imply . . .” they might say, or, “We believe