is a thesis first person

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Thesis Format: Detailed Instructions and Tips

Gathering the necessary material for a large and saturated project is just half the battle, to set up everything and format the work properly is a real deed, challenging and exacting. There are a lot of specific requirements and rules to be born in mind. But don't take it so hard, we give you all the fundamental information concerning thesis paper format. You'll find out 

• what parts a successful work should have;
• what formatting requirements should be adhered to;
• what tips occur to be helpful.

So, get ready to remember all the important principles in terms of paper finalization.

What is a Thesis Format?

In the process of thesis creation, everyone should set up the data in a specific way. The general structure and stylistic patterns are usually the same everywhere, though some minor issues may vary from one department to another.

Correct Thesis Format: Important or Not?

When working with the material it is crucial to stick to the thesis writing format in order to:

• show your professional approach to this activity;
• refine the readability of the text;
• provide convenient navigation through the work;
• bring the skills nearer to the academic standards;
• help the audience focus on the investigation essence.

A Thesis and its Parts

The thesis structure format implies such parts, obligatory for a good consistent work.

Having discussed the standard structure of the paper, it's high time to discuss useful rules and tips on how to complete the processing.

A General Guideline for Thesis Formatting

Well, how to format a thesis correctly? The most important points are presented in the table.

These recommendations are general, and every writer must look through the local guidelines in all cases. Almost every department has a thesis format example, and by getting acquainted with it everyone is certain to get rid of potential mistakes. It doesn't take much time but accentuates your interest and thoroughness, so important for a perfect researcher.

Other Tips on how to Format the Thesis

Apart from answering the question 'What is the thesis format?', we'd like to present some additional recommendations and tips concerning the work. It is useful to remind that visual division helps to acquire information in a better way

• Use single-spaced blocks for quotations or footnotes.
• Add a special line for the committee signature on the relevant page.
• Organize margins from all the sides of the sheet appropriately.
• Check the numbers on page consequence.
• Proofread all the text and check all the format details before submitting the paper.

Studying general rules of formatting is crucial for students, researchers, and other specialists of the sphere. But every time you are also to look into the guidelines offered by your local headmen. The correct paperwork is pleasant to read. Moreover, it underlines the author's professionalism and preciseness.

If you need to get acquainted with thesis format essay, try Aithor . It is a professional instrument, generating texts according to input parameters. You may choose the language, writing style, topic, outline, and other necessary options.

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Woman's death at Burning Man is under investigation

A woman died Sunday on the first day of the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the event and local authorities announced. 

Burning Man emergency service personnel responded to a report of an unresponsive person at 11:29 a.m. in Black Rock City, the Burning Man Project said in a news release . Lifesaving measures were “attempted but were unsuccessful,” officials said. Black Rock City is a temporary city erected for the annual festival.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office identified the woman in a statement Monday afternoon as Kendra Frazer, 39. No hometown was given. The sheriff's department said her family has been notified.

The office said an autopsy and drug tests need to be completed before the cause and manner of death can be determined. Drug tests, or toxicology screening, can sometimes take weeks to complete.

In an earlier statement, the sheriff's office said that it was notified about “the potential death” of a participant at 11:37 a.m. Sunday by the festival and that deputies responded and confirmed the death.

“Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and friends affected by this loss,” said the Burning Man Project, the nonprofit organization behind the annual event.

It said support is available to festival participants, including peer support services, at Black Rock Rangers headquarters and outposts and via the Black Rock City Emergency Services Department’s crisis support team. 

“The safety and well-being of our staff and community are paramount," it said. "We are cooperating fully with local authorities as they investigate this incident. The Pershing County Sheriff’s office investigates all deaths that occur in its jurisdiction.”

The festival temporarily closed gates to the event early Saturday for about 12 hours because of rain.

Last year, festivalgoer Leon Reece, 32, of Truckee, California, died after he was found unresponsive on the festival grounds, authorities said. Drug intoxication was suspected, a coroner’s office said in September. 

Reece died amid a weekend of heavy rain that left the venue muddy, roads impassable and many participants exiting by foot. Organizers temporarily shut down traffic in and out of Black Rock City.

Marlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Harris could become the first female president after years of breaking racial and gender barriers

She’s already broken barriers, and now Kamala Harris could become the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to head a major party’s presidential ticket if Democrats nominate her after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid.

Kamala Harris is the first female U.S. vice president — and the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent in the role, and one of the Democratic party’s most prominent figures.

FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in the East Room of the White House, March 18, 2024, in Washington. She’s already broken barriers, and now Harris could soon become the first Black woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket after President Joe Biden’s ended his reelection bid. The 59-year-old Harris was endorsed by Biden on Sunday, July 21, after he stepped aside amid widespread concerns about the viability of his candidacy. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event in Manassas, Va., Jan. 23, 2024. She’s already broken barriers, and now Harris could soon become the first Black woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket after President Joe Biden’s ended his reelection bid. The 59-year-old Harris was endorsed by Biden on Sunday, July 21, after he stepped aside amid widespread concerns about the viability of his candidacy. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event May 1, 2024, in Jacksonville, Fla. She’s already broken barriers, and now Harris could soon become the first Black woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket after President Joe Biden’s ended his reelection bid. The 59-year-old Harris was endorsed by Biden on Sunday, July 21, after he stepped aside amid widespread concerns about the viability of his candidacy. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden walks with Vice President Kamala Harris after speaking on updated guidance on face mask mandates and COVID-19 response, in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 13, 2021, in Washington. She’s already broken barriers, and now Harris could soon become the first Black woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket after President Joe Biden’s ended his reelection bid. The 59-year-old Harris was endorsed by Biden on Sunday, July 21, after he stepped aside amid widespread concerns about the viability of his candidacy. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Del., Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, July 22, 2024, during an event with NCAA college athletes. This is her first public appearance since President Joe Biden endorsed her to be the next presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Florida State University women’s soccer player Jordynn Dudley speaks from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, July 22, 2024, as Vice President Kamala Harris looks on, during an event with NCAA college athletes. This is Harris’ first public appearance since President Joe Biden endorsed her to be the next presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s already broken barriers, and now Kamala Harris could shatter several more after President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid and endorsed her.

Biden announced Sunday that he was stepping aside after a disastrous debate performance catalyzed fears that the 81-year-old was too frail for a second term.

Harris is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she becomes the Democratic nominee and defeats Republican candidate Donald Trump in November, she would be the first woman to serve as president.

Biden said Sunday that choosing Harris as his running mate was “the best decision I’ve made” and endorsed her as his successor.

“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Let’s do this.”

Harris described Biden’s decision to step aside as a “selfless and patriotic act,” saying he was “putting the American people and our country above everything else.”

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election.”

Prominent Democrats followed Biden’s lead by swiftly coalescing around Harris on Sunday. However, her nomination is not a foregone conclusion, and there have been suggestions that the party should hold a lightning-fast “mini primary” to consider other candidates before its convention in Chicago next month.

A recent poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job in the top slot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.

The poll showed that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Harris, whose name is pronounced “COMM-a-la,” while about half have an unfavorable opinion.

A former prosecutor and U.S. senator from California, Harris’ own bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination imploded before a single primary vote was cast . She later became Biden’s running mate, but she struggled to find her footing after taking office as vice president. Assigned to work on issues involving migration from Central America, she was repeatedly blamed by Republicans for problems with illegal border crossings.

However, Harris found more prominence as the White House’s most outspoken advocate for abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has also played a key role in reaching out to young people and voters of color.

In addition, Harris’ steady performance after Biden’s debate debacle solidified her standing among Democrats in recent weeks.

Even before Biden’s endorsement, Harris was widely viewed as the favorite to replace him on the ticket. With her foreign policy experience and national name recognition, she has a head start over potential challengers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Harris will seek to avoid the fate of Hubert Humphrey, who as vice president won the Democratic nomination in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson declined to run for reelection amid national dissatisfaction over the Vietnam War. Humphrey lost that year to Republican Richard Nixon.

Nixon resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal and was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford. Ford never won a term of his own.

Vice presidents are always in line to step into the top job if the president dies or is incapacitated. However, Harris has faced an unusual level of scrutiny because of Biden’s age. He was the oldest president in history, taking office at 78 and announcing his reelection bid at 80. Harris is 59.

She addressed the question of succession in an interview with The Associated Press during a trip to Jakarta in September 2023.

“Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition,” she stated. “But let us also understand that every vice president — every vice president — understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president.”

“I’m no different.”

Harris was born Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to parents who met as civil rights activists. Her hometown and nearby Berkeley were at the heart of the racial and social justice movements of the time, and Harris was both a product and a beneficiary.

She spoke often about attending demonstrations in a stroller and growing up around adults “who spent full time marching and shouting about this thing called justice.” In first grade, she was bused to school as part of the second class to integrate Berkeley public education.

Harris’ parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her mother alongside her younger sister, Maya. She attended Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which became a source of sisterhood and political support over the years.

After graduating, Harris returned to the San Francisco Bay Area for law school and chose a career as a prosecutor, a move that surprised her activist family.

She said she believed that working for change inside the system was just as important as agitating from outside. By 2003, she was running for her first political office, taking on the longtime San Francisco district attorney.

Few city residents knew her name, and Harris set up an ironing board as a table outside grocery stores to meet people. She won and quickly showed a willingness to chart her own path. Months into her tenure, Harris declined to seek the death penalty for the killer of a young police officer slain in the line of duty, fraying her relationship with city cops.

The episode did not stop her political ascent. In late 2007, while still serving as district attorney, she was knocking on doors in Iowa for then-candidate Barack Obama. After he became president, Obama endorsed her in her 2010 race for California attorney general.

Once elected to statewide office, she pledged to uphold the death penalty despite her moral opposition to it. She refused to defend Proposition 8, a voter-backed initiative banning same-sex marriage. Harris also played a key role in a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s mortgage lenders following the foreclosure crisis.

As killings of young Black men by police received more attention, Harris implemented some changes, including tracking racial data in police stops, but didn’t pursue more aggressive measures such as requiring independent prosecutors to investigate police shootings.

Harris’ record as a prosecutor would eventually dog her when she launched a presidential bid in 2019, as some progressives and younger voters demanded swifter change. But during her time on the job, she also forged a fortuitous relationship with Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s son who was then Delaware’s attorney general. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, and his friendship with Harris figured heavily years later as his father chose Harris to be his running mate.

Harris married entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014, and she became stepmother to Emhoff’s two children, Ella and Cole, who referred to her as “Momala.”

Harris had a rare opportunity to advance politically when Sen. Barbara Boxer, who had served more than two decades, announced she would not run again in 2016.

In office, Harris quickly became part of the Democratic resistance to Trump and gained recognition for her pointed questioning of his nominees. In one memorable moment, she pressed now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on whether he knew any laws that gave government the power to regulate a man’s body. He did not, and the line of questioning galvanized women and abortion rights activists.

A little more than two years after becoming a senator, Harris announced her campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But her campaign was marred by infighting and she failed to gain traction, ultimately dropping out before the Iowa caucuses.

Eight months later, Biden selected Harris as his running mate. As he introduced her to the nation, Biden reflected on what her nomination meant for “little Black and brown girls who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities.”

“Today, just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way, as the stuff of presidents and vice presidents,” he said.

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this story.

A giant hole in Siberia is visible from space and growing rapidly. It might reveal hints about our planet's future.

• Satellite images show a giant hole in Siberia is rapidly expanding.
• The Batagay megaslump is a result of the ground thawing and collapsing as Arctic temperatures rise.
• It's an extreme case of a changing Arctic landscape accelerating the climate crisis.

A giant hole in the earth is breaking open the land in Siberia, and photos from space show it's growing rapidly.

It resembles a stingray, a horseshoe crab, or a giant tadpole. It started as a sliver, barely visible in declassified satellite imagery from the 1960s.

Now it's a chasm with steep cliffs, clearly visible from space .

The hole tripled in size between 1991 and 2018, according to the US Geological Survey .

The Batagay crater, sometimes referred to as Batagaika or the "gateway to hell," represents a much larger, often invisible problem that affects the entire planet .

What is this hole in Siberia?

The Arctic is heating up faster than the rest of Earth, and that's quickly thawing the permafrost, which is a thick layer of soil that's permanently frozen — at least, it used to be.

The Batagay crater isn't actually a crater at all. It's the world's largest "retrogressive thaw slump," a pit that forms when permafrost thaw causes the ground to cave in, creating a landslide as the earth at its edges slumps into the pit.

There are thousands of thaw slumps across the Arctic. But the size of the Batagay "crater" has earned it the title of megaslump. It's named for the nearby town of Batagay.

" Permafrost is not the most, let's say, photogenic of subjects," Roger Michaelides, a geophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis, told Business Insider. "You're talking mostly about frozen dirt underground, which by definition you often can't see unless it's been exposed somehow, like in this megaslump."

That makes the Batagay pit a bit of a permafrost celebrity and an omen of what lies ahead.

The Batagay megaslump could help decode our planet's future

As permafrost thaws, all the dead plants and animals that have been frozen inside it for centuries start to decompose, belching carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere .

Those are powerful heat-trapping gases , which cause global temperatures to rise even more, triggering even faster permafrost thaw.

This vicious cycle could have dire effects. Permafrost covers 15% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere and contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere.

One study estimated that permafrost thaw could emit as much planet-warming gases as a large industrial nation by 2100 if industries and countries don't aggressively rein in their own emissions today.

Related stories

"There's a lot we don't know about this feedback loop and how it will play out necessarily, but the potential is there for very large changes to the climate system occurring over very, very fast geologic timescales," Michaelides said.

In short, permafrost thaw could quickly make the climate crisis much worse. But it's still a mysterious process. Studying extreme sites like the Batagay megaslump can help scientists understand permafrost thaw and see into the future.

In a study published in the journal Geomorphology in June, researchers used satellite and drone data to construct 3D models of the megaslump and calculate its expansion over time.

They found that about 14 Pyramids of Giza's worth of ice and permafrost had thawed at Batagay. The crater's volume increases by about 1 million cubic meters every year.

"These values are truly impressive," Alexander Kizyakov, the study's lead author and a scientist at Lomonosov Moscow State University, told BI in an email.

"Our results demonstrate how quickly permafrost degradation occurs," he added.

The researchers also calculated that the megaslump releases about 4,000 to 5,000 tons of carbon each year. That's about as much as the annual emissions from 1,700 to 2,100 US homes' energy use.

Michaelides said those numbers didn't surprise him, but they can help inform models of future permafrost thaw and emissions.

"I think there is a lot we can learn from Batagaika, not only in terms of understanding how Batagaika will evolve with time, but also how similar features might develop and evolve over the Arctic," Michaelides said. "Even if they're a tenth or a hundredth the size of Batagaika, the physics is fundamentally the same."

Watch: Volcano in Russia covers villages in ash after eruption

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What We Know About Kamala Harris’s $5 Trillion Tax Plan So Far

The vice president supports the tax increases proposed by the Biden White House, according to her campaign.

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By Andrew Duehren

Reporting from Washington

In a campaign otherwise light on policy specifics, Vice President Kamala Harris this week quietly rolled out her most detailed, far-ranging proposal yet: nearly $5 trillion in tax increases over a decade.

That’s how much more revenue the federal government would raise if it adopted a number of tax increases that President Biden proposed in the spring . Ms. Harris’s campaign said this week that she supported those tax hikes, which were thoroughly laid out in the most recent federal budget plan prepared by the Biden administration.

No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under the plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. Congress has previously rejected many of these tax ideas, even when Democrats controlled both chambers.

While tax policy is right now a subplot in a turbulent presidential campaign, it will be a primary policy issue in Washington next year. The next president will have to work with Congress to address the tax cuts Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of those tax cuts expire after 2025, meaning millions of Americans will see their taxes go up if lawmakers don’t reach a deal next year.

Here’s an overview of what we now know — and still don’t know — about the Democratic nominee’s views on taxes.

Higher taxes on corporations

The most recent White House budget includes several proposals that would raise taxes on large corporations . Chief among them is raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, a step that the Treasury Department estimated could bring in $1.3 trillion in revenue over the next 10 years.

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Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, using first person in an academic essay: when is it okay.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Jenna Pack Sheffield

Related Concepts: Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community ; First-Person Point of View ; Rhetorical Analysis; Rhetorical Stance ; The First Person ; Voice

In order to determine whether or not you can speak or write from the first-person point of view, you need to engage in rhetorical analysis. You need to question whether your audience values and accepts the first person as a legitimate rhetorical stance. Source:Many times, high school students are told not to use first person (“I,” “we,” “my,” “us,” and so forth) in their essays. As a college student, you should realize that this is a rule that can and should be broken—at the right time, of course.

By now, you’ve probably written a personal essay, memoir, or narrative that used first person. After all, how could you write a personal essay about yourself, for instance, without using the dreaded “I” word?

However, academic essays differ from personal essays; they are typically researched and use a formal tone . Because of these differences, when students write an academic essay, they quickly shy away from first person because of what they have been told in high school or because they believe that first person feels too informal for an intellectual, researched text. While first person can definitely be overused in academic essays (which is likely why your teachers tell you not to use it), there are moments in a paper when it is not only appropriate, but also more effective and/or persuasive to use first person. The following are a few instances in which it is appropriate to use first person in an academic essay:

• Including a personal anecdote: You have more than likely been told that you need a strong “hook” to draw your readers in during an introduction. Sometimes, the best hook is a personal anecdote, or a short amusing story about yourself. In this situation, it would seem unnatural not to use first-person pronouns such as “I” and “myself.” Your readers will appreciate the personal touch and will want to keep reading! (For more information about incorporating personal anecdotes into your writing, see “ Employing Narrative in an Essay .”)
• Establishing your credibility ( ethos ): Ethos is a term stemming back to Ancient Greece that essentially means “character” in the sense of trustworthiness or credibility. A writer can establish her ethos by convincing the reader that she is trustworthy source. Oftentimes, the best way to do that is to get personal—tell the reader a little bit about yourself. (For more information about ethos, see “ Ethos .”)For instance, let’s say you are writing an essay arguing that dance is a sport. Using the occasional personal pronoun to let your audience know that you, in fact, are a classically trained dancer—and have the muscles and scars to prove it—goes a long way in establishing your credibility and proving your argument. And this use of first person will not distract or annoy your readers because it is purposeful.
• Clarifying passive constructions : Often, when writers try to avoid using first person in essays, they end up creating confusing, passive sentences . For instance, let’s say I am writing an essay about different word processing technologies, and I want to make the point that I am using Microsoft Word to write this essay. If I tried to avoid first-person pronouns, my sentence might read: “Right now, this essay is being written in Microsoft Word.” While this sentence is not wrong, it is what we call passive—the subject of the sentence is being acted upon because there is no one performing the action. To most people, this sentence sounds better: “Right now, I am writing this essay in Microsoft Word.” Do you see the difference? In this case, using first person makes your writing clearer.
• Stating your position in relation to others: Sometimes, especially in an argumentative essay, it is necessary to state your opinion on the topic . Readers want to know where you stand, and it is sometimes helpful to assert yourself by putting your own opinions into the essay. You can imagine the passive sentences (see above) that might occur if you try to state your argument without using the word “I.” The key here is to use first person sparingly. Use personal pronouns enough to get your point across clearly without inundating your readers with this language.

Now, the above list is certainly not exhaustive. The best thing to do is to use your good judgment, and you can always check with your instructor if you are unsure of his or her perspective on the issue. Ultimately, if you feel that using first person has a purpose or will have a strategic effect on your audience, then it is probably fine to use first-person pronouns. Just be sure not to overuse this language, at the risk of sounding narcissistic, self-centered, or unaware of others’ opinions on a topic.

Recommended Readings:

• A Synthesis of Professor Perspectives on Using First and Third Person in Academic Writing
• Finding the Bunny: How to Make a Personal Connection to Your Writing
• First-Person Point of View

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Welcome to the new OASIS website! We have academic skills, library skills, math and statistics support, and writing resources all together in one new home.

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Scholarly Voice: First-Person Point of View

First-person point of view.

Since 2007, Walden academic leadership has endorsed the APA manual guidance on appropriate use of the first-person singular pronoun "I," allowing the use of this pronoun in all Walden academic writing except doctoral capstone abstracts, which should not contain first person pronouns.

In addition to the pointers below, APA 7, Section 4.16 provides information on the appropriate use of first person in scholarly writing.

Inappropriate Uses:   I feel that eating white bread causes cancer. The author feels that eating white bread causes cancer. I found several sources (Marks, 2011; Isaac, 2006; Stuart, in press) that showed a link between white bread consumption and cancer.   Appropriate Use:   I surveyed 2,900 adults who consumed white bread regularly. In this chapter, I present a literature review on research about how seasonal light changes affect depression.

Confusing Sentence:   The researcher found that the authors had been accurate in their study of helium, which the researcher had hypothesized from the beginning of their project.   Revision:   I found that Johnson et al. (2011) had been accurate in their study of helium, which I had hypothesized since I began my project.

Passive voice:   The surveys were distributed and the results were compiled after they were collected.   Revision:   I distributed the surveys, and then I collected and compiled the results.

Appropriate use of first person we and our :   Two other nurses and I worked together to create a qualitative survey to measure patient satisfaction. Upon completion, we presented the results to our supervisor.

Make assumptions about your readers by putting them in a group to which they may not belong by using first person plural pronouns. Inappropriate use of first person "we" and "our":

• We can stop obesity in our society by changing our lifestyles.
• We need to help our patients recover faster.

In the first sentence above, the readers would not necessarily know who "we" are, and using a phrase such as "our society " can immediately exclude readers from outside your social group. In the second sentence, the author assumes that the reader is a nurse or medical professional, which may not be the case, and the sentence expresses the opinion of the author.

To write with more precision and clarity, hallmarks of scholarly writing, revise these sentences without the use of "we" and "our."

• Moderate activity can reduce the risk of obesity (Hu et al., 2003).
• Staff members in the health care industry can help improve the recovery rate for patients (Matthews, 2013).

Pronouns Video

• APA Formatting & Style: Pronouns (video transcript)

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Writing a dissertation

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Writing a dissertation for either a final-year project or a PhD is a large task. Here are a few thoughts to help along the way.

Preparatory reading

Your dissertation should be written in English. If this is not your native language, it is important that you ask someone literate to proof read your dissertation. Your supervisor only has a limited amount of time, so it would be sensible to ask two or three literate friends to read your dissertation before giving it to your supervisor. That way, he or she will be able to concentrate on the technical content without being distracted by the style.

Incidentally, it is a good idea to make sure that one of your readers is not a specialist in your area of research. That way they can check that you have explained the technical concepts in an accessible way.

Chapter 27 of Day's book gives some useful advice on the use (and misuse) of English.

• Tense — You should normally use the present tense when referring to previously published work, and you should use the past tense when referring to your present results. The principal exception to this rule is when describing experiments undertaken by others in the past tense, even if the results that they established are described in the present tense. Results of calculations and statistical analyses should also be in the present tense. So "There are six basic emotions [Ekman, 1972]. I have written a computer program that distinguishes them in photographs of human faces."
• Voice — The active voice is usually more precise and less wordy than the passive voice. So "The system distinguished six emotions" rather than "It was found that the system could distinguish six emotions".
• Person — The general preference nowadays is to write in the first person, although there is still some debate.
• Number — When writing in the first person, use the singular or plural as appropriate. For a dissertation with one author, do not use the "editorial we" in place of "I". The use of "we" by a single author is outrageously pretentious.
• The Future Perfect Web site has some useful hints and tips on English usage.
• Formality — A dissertation is a formal document. Writing in the first person singular is preferred, but remember that you are writing a scientific document not a child's diary. Don't use informal abbreviations like "don't".
• Repetition — Say everything three times: introduce the ideas, explain them, and then give a summary. You can apply this to the whole dissertation with introductory and closing chapters, and to each chapter with introductory and closing sections. However, do not simply copy entire paragraphs. The three variants of the text serve different purposes and should be written differently.
• Sidenotes — Avoid remarks in parentheses and excessive use of footnotes. If something matters, say it in the main text. If it doesn't matter, leave it out.
• References — Citations in brackets are parenthetical remarks. Don't use them as nouns. So "Ekman [1972] identifies six basic emotions" rather than "Six basic emotions are identified in [Ekman, 1972]".
• Simple language — Convoluted sentences with multiple clauses—especially nested using stray punctuation—make it harder for the reader to follow the argument; avoid them. Short sentences are more effective at holding the reader's attention.
• Remember the difference between adjectives and adverbs. Likely is an adjective, probably is an adverb. Purists would also say that due to is an adjectival preposition and owing to is adverbial, but this distinction is now largely lost (although because of probably reads better anyway).
• Try not to use nouns as adjectives. Alas, this is a common problem in Computer Science publications. At the very least, limit the number of nouns that are strung together.
• Try not to split infinitives. It is perfectly good English, but a lot of people don't like it.

Word processing

Learn how to use your word processor effectively. This will probably be MS Word or LaTeX. In either case, make sure that you now how to include numbered figures, tables of contents, indexes, references and a bibliography efficiently. With MS Word, learn how to use styles consistently. With LaTeX, consider a WYSIWYG editor such as LyX.

Think about your house style for pages and for things like fragments of computer programs.

• © 2020 Peter Robinson Information provided by Peter Robinson

Using the First Person in Academic Writing: Can I Use "I"?

#scribendiinc

Written by  Anthony Granziol

Bringing Yourself Back to Your Academic Writing: Pronouns and Perspective

When academic writing is discussed, objectivity usually crops up. Researchers are expected to perform their research in a way that prevents bias, undue influence, and incorrect results. That can mean blinding research subjects from other subjects, preventing observers from having certain information about their subjects (e.g., age, gender, race, political affiliation), and even taking the person writing the final report out of the phrasing so the information presented is not treated as an opinion.

How important is it to remove the first person in academic writing? This article will look at whether the first or third person should be used when writing academically. You may be surprised by just how much the answer depends on the context of what is being written.

The Case against Using the First Person in Academic Writing

Back in the 17th century, Francis Bacon and other like-minded scientists were trying to figure out how scientific information should be shared. Bacon supported the idea of empiricism, which translates roughly to "seeing is believing." Though Bacon wasn't the first to espouse this perspective (it has been around since roughly 600 BCE), he did formalize it. He said there was only one way to ensure the human subjectivity of such vision: write down every single step taken when performing an experiment and provide justification for each step being the way it is. Sound familiar? Bacon was trying to keep scientists from misleading themselves while experimenting, seeing what they wanted to see rather than what actually was. That remains a goal of academic writing to this day.

For most scientists, using the third person in academic writing is essential. A first-person pronoun is a warning—a sign that only a specific person or group can perform a given experiment. Using the third person takes that subjectivity out of the picture, allowing anyone to do the work. "I" did not do the work; the work just happened, or "they" did it, and "they" could be anybody, making the action universal. Does "they" refer to a male research student in Saudi Arabia or a female Asian postdoctoral fellow in Scotland or a non-binary Aboriginal biological chemistry professor in Canada? Yes.

In Support of the First Person: The Passive Problem

The problem that most schools and publishers have with the third person in academic writing is one of voice, specifically the  passive voice . Using the first person in academic writing practically guarantees the active voice will be used, since we seldom refer to ourselves passively. Nathan Sheffield pointed this out with an example for the Duke Graduate School's  Scientific Writing Resource  that is summarized here.

Active example: "We then analyzed the DNA using qPCR." The sentence is in the active voice, with "we" analyzing "DNA" with a tool, "qPCR." Simple and straightforward.

Passive example: "The DNA was then subjected to qPCR analysis." This sentence is in the passive voice, and the verb has been nominalized (turned into a noun), making the sentence bulkier with two unnecessary verbs and other words.

Yes, the nominalization could be done away with by using "The DNA was then analyzed using qPCR," but that raises the question of who performed the action. Using the third person carries ambiguity with it, and context will not always permit conciseness unless surrounding sentences explain who is doing the acting.

The Importance of Striking the Right Tone

So where does that leave you if you want to write academically? It depends on what you want to write. Some contexts will permit the use of the passive voice to maintain an objective tone (which uses the third person). Other contexts will permit a subjective tone (which uses the first person) if, and this is a big "if," you can justify it. The best way to justify a subjective tone is to make it helpful by using it to show agency (e.g., "While previous studies have focused on X, I have taken a Y perspective…") or progress (e.g., "We noted X after the reaction began…").

When it comes to writing, the terms "voice" and "tone" can be confusing. They may sound similar, but they are not. They are, however, easy to distinguish from each other if you know what to look for. Think of your voice as your writing style. Most academic writers will have a style provided to them before they start writing and will have to tailor their words and referencing to match that style. Voices are clearly defined and are recognizable when reading the work of a particular author or publisher. Think of your favorite fiction writer or a news source you like. You can recognize their voice in the words they repeat and the cadence of their writing. Even journals have voices, with some providing factual descriptions with little context (so the reader can focus on described experiments), while others offer rich backgrounds before giving details on what was tested, ensuring the reader can understand the subtleties at play in the presented study.

Tone, by contrast, changes depending on content and audience. You wouldn't talk to your parents in the same tone you would use to address a first-year class or to attend a job interview. All of these situations have different audiences and information in play, so we tailor our tone accordingly. Tone is where pronouns are determined and where the choice between first or third person gets made. Since academic writing has a consistent audience (fellow authors/students seeking supported arguments on a subject they're familiar with), it should be fairly easy for you to choose a suitable tone once you know your content.

Knowing When to Use the First or Third Person

The easiest way to write for your audience and content is to answer this question: If you were picking up your article for the first time, what tone would you prefer? On the way to writing your article, you likely read several articles on the same subject. What did you notice about them? Did they all take a passive tone with careful syntax so they provided information that could not possibly be considered biased? Did they each have a different perspective denoted by the authors' writing in the first person? These are your fellow authors, so treat their work with the respect it deserves, and don't be afraid to borrow their tone while also citing their facts.

Philosophy and arts articles tend to use personal experience to illustrate ideas or point out parallels between current and past work. Gender studies usually draw on specific perspectives that can be bolstered by personal experience. So trot out the "I" and "we" if writing about these subjects or if you are offering a subjective disagreement, giving instruction on how to teach, offering a narration, or describing someone's reactions.

If you are going to be writing on religious subjects (where personal devotions can draw accusations of bias) or scientific information (where the focus is duplicating your research instead of your perspective), use the third person. If you want to convince the reader of your argument's validity, "I" is not your friend , because it will be too easy for a detractor to label your logic as an opinion.  

Final Words

In summary, using the first person in academic writing successfully requires a careful assessment of context, situation, and tone. But it can be done. At the end of the day, you are the writer. If you haven't been asked to adhere to a particular style, you can use whatever literary tools are necessary to show your enthusiasm and academic worth. You can seek outside advice, including professional editing and proofreading , to help you polish your work. However, the final choice on whether to mention yourself in your writing rests with you.

Happy writing!

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Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Reviewer of PhD thesis doesn't allow me to write in the first person singular

In my PhD thesis, I often used the first person singular during the description of the problem and the discussion of the results. One comment from the reviewer states that because I did not use the third person, the entire thesis must be revised accordingly.

I understand that in a journal article one should use the third person to describe the problem and discuss the findings. However, I always supposed that one can use the first person in a PhD thesis because I saw many researchers doing so. Could anybody give me a suggestion about how to deal with the reviewer who doesn't accept my choice to write in the first person?

• writing-style

• 9 I'm voting to reopen the question because it has a different focus than the earlier question: The earlier question was about the standards for writing in the first person. This new question is about how to deal with a reviewer who doesn't accept the choice to write in the first person. –  lighthouse keeper Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 7:42
• 1 @lighthousekeeper I am convinced by your comment that this question is about how to deal with the situation that the committee member disagrees with the OP's choice. I apologize and thanks for pointing it out. –  Nobody Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 9:07
• Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat . –  Wrzlprmft ♦ Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 19:09
• 5 Can you please edit your question to clarify whether the reviewer really insisted on you using the third person (he, she, it, they) or just the first person plural (we)? –  Wrzlprmft ♦ Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 19:14
• 2 As one of our esteemed moderators posted a clarifying question here and not in the chat chain, I'll dare to do the same.... Can you give us a bit more context such as field, age of reviewer, whether reviewer has some recent publications, country you're in? –  aparente001 Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 1:36

11 Answers 11

With due respect - everyone's answers here are mostly irrelevant. The suggestions, ideas and perceptions we here on Academia.SX have on this issue are not the authoritative answer you need to get you past the review.

You need to talk to:

• Your advisor
• The administrator in charge of the "thesis phase" of PhDs in your department or your graduate school

They have some or lots of experience, respectively, with this situation, and will tell you what you should/must do when faced with such a demand from a reviewer. They may also contact the reviewer on your behalf if they believe s/he is wrong, or to explain the regulations to him/her etc.

Note that it might even be the case that you're expected to use the first person, and other reviewers will get annoyed if you switch. So you can't just cater to one person - you need to check what the default is.

• 4 I like this. We can discuss the problem here till the cows come home, but the advisor and administrators on the ground are the people who can give relevant, meaningful advice to OP. –  aparente001 Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 1:39
• 3 Your institution will have a set of style guidelines. Follow them and speak to your administrator if you get any pushback –  Stevetech Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 8:17
• 2 @Stevetech: I was assuming that if OP was able to submit and have his thesis sent to reviewers, it meets the institutional guidelines already. –  einpoklum Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 11:41
• 1 I was agreeing with you. Most institutions will also have language guides –  Stevetech Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 11:45
• 1 @PeterGreen: In that case, your advisor will say "officially you can write your thesis either way, just humor the guy" or "I want it to be 1st-person, let me talk to him". –  einpoklum Commented Apr 2, 2018 at 7:08

There is an annoying truth here: What's OK in a PhD thesis and what not largely depends on the reviewers. Some people in academia have a huge inflated ego and prefer things to be done as they suggest, and the reviewer in your case is possibly among those people. You don't want to fight with them on this kind of issue.

If the reviewer has other comments that tend to create additional work without clearly improving the thesis, you may consider exchanging the reviewer.

• 11 I wouldn't say that a reviewer has an nflated ego if he demands a form to be used which is standard in that field (if that's the case). In chemistry for example you basically won't find any serious work using "I", it's passive for the most part and in introductions and such things you use "we". Everything else just looks unprofessional to most chemists. –  user64845 Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 19:55
• 11 Agreeing with DSVA; different fields have different widely accepted conventions. For example in astronomy use of “I” is quite prevelant, but in say, a particle physics paper is not, showing even within the same field, different subfields may have varying conventions. That being said, the department’s PhD style guide (if it exists) always takes precedent. –  JNS Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 12:45
• @DSVA and JNS: Mostly agreed. I'm referring to the OP's description, according to which he already saw his preferred form in a couple of PhD theses (presumably in the same area). –  lighthouse keeper Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 16:47

There is no steadfast rule that applies across disciplines, countries, fashions, and personalities.

Do what makes your reviewers happy. Their demand is annoying, but not utterly unreasonable. More importantly, they decide over your defense and thereby your future.

This is not something worth fighting over, and certainly no reason to change supervisors.

• 11 I agree that it's not worth fighting the reviewer; nevertheless, I think the reviewer is being utterly unreasonable. –  Andreas Blass Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 10:53
• 3 A famous example of the “make reviewers/editor happy” rule is the story of this cat sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/… who got co-author credit for a paper. I actually think that, in a thesis, attribution is important and “I” should be used to clarify what the candidate has done. –  ZeroTheHero Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 12:18

We think that they can either suck it up, or keep using they as it clarifies very much the thesis. And by they I mean you, by we I mean they, or something like that.

I wrote my PhD thesis by putting " I " everywhere when the norm was a vaporous "we, the people". I wrote it, together with MY brain and, most importantly, MY ego. The dog did not type it either, though we could be all-encompassing.

I find it ridiculous to use a metaphorical "we" or "they" , or "the neighbour" when talking about one's own work. We should share their salary, while we are at it.

Now your question is whether you can do something or not, which is completely up to the jury or referrer. Sure you can. And sure they can make your life miserable.

• 3 We is first person, not third. –  Captain Man Commented Mar 29, 2018 at 20:42
• 10 We love the humor in this post. +1 –  user541686 Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 0:34
• 6 @WoJ Mathematicians and their ilk justify the standard use of "we" for solo work by claiming it means "the author and the reader". For example: "As a key step toward our main theorem, we prove Lemma 4 using a variant of our proof technique for Lemma 2." Math papers don't describe what someone did before the paper was written, but an argument to be followed by the reader after the paper is written, with the author's help. –  JeffE Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 16:15
• 12 @DSVA Switching to the passive decreases readability (in my opinion), increases length, and worst of all removes information . It actually makes a practical difference whether a sample was prepared by me, by a department technician with 25 years' experience, by a novice undergrad assistant, by a professional external lab, or by a trained chimpanzee. Distinguishing between work that I did and work that someone else did is particularly important in a PhD dissertation, because it's primarily my work that's of relevance for assessment. –  Pont Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 20:13
• 4 @DSVA Of course if your field or target journal strictly mandates the passive you have no choice, but for many fields this isn't the case. For instance, Nature 's style guide says ‘Nature journals prefer authors to write in the active voice’, the American Chemical Society Style Guide (3rd ed.) says ‘Use first person when it helps to keep your meaning clear and to express a purpose or a decision. [e.g.] Jones reported xyz, but I (or we) found…’, and as JeffE mentions above, the active ‘we’ is standard in mathematics. For the rest, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. –  Pont Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 7:33

Despite this academic's personal embrace of first person writing, many respected colleagues despise even a hint of first person narrative. In their honor, here are a few ways writing improves without the first person.

• Phrases like "I think that" and "I believe that" often sneak into writing and water it down. Excising the first person can make the arguments bolder, as well as more readable.
• Even in presenting results or discussion or a conclusion, "I find that..." might already be implicit. For instance, replacing, "I find that the sky appears blue," with "The sky appears blue," yields a stronger topic sentence for the paragraph. Again, sentences can gain authority while becoming briefer.
• More broadly, the best writing tells a story. However, the narrative that is often closest to an author's mind is their own journey through the topic. Only exceptional circumstances make that autobiography a compelling narrative to frame a research paper. Instead, "storytelling" should almost always give the reader insight into the research, perhaps by highlighting an incident captured in and illuminated by the data, or a metaphor to characterize molecules' motion, or as the puzzle of why X commonly happens after Y.

As other answers here emphasize, if that committee member cares enough about this point and must approve the final draft, then editing it is the wisest course of action. If there are hints (from that person or others) why they care, that may allow for compromises that meet those objectives without a full edit, or it may at least make the time spent editing out "I"s feel less bitter. And upon reviewing sentences in the thesis that use the first person, if patterns emerge, editing only the frequent, most problematic contexts (such as "I think...") may appease that reader.

(This answer uses neither the first nor second person, without relying on the passive voice. It is possible by (occasionally) relying on the impersonal pronoun, using gerunds to discuss action without having to identify an actor, and making inanimate things into grammatical subjects. It makes for an annoying writing experience, and hopefully such edits will not be mandatory after all for the thesis in question.)

As a side point, It is very convenient to use the term "we" in a draft of a paper, in the off-chance that an additional author joins for one reason or another (someone you consult makes a significant contribution, two articles with similar content are independently published on a pre-print server, and a joint paper is in order).

Also, some boiler-plate introduction of terms/notions can be almost copy-pasted between projects, some with one author, some with several. Changing all 'I' to 'we' must be annoying.

A lot has been covered by other answers, but I just wanted to add something that came up while I was working on my thesis.

The faculty at my university always suggested that in the "Contributions" section (of the Introduction), you list your contributions in first person. For example, "I was responsible for implementing X on Y and testing Z", "I authored a paper in IEEE Transactions on ABC" and so on.

For the rest of the thesis it was passive, but that one section was handled differently. Of course, discuss this with your supervisor and reviewers first.

Writing style is not a big deal. If you have a strong and reasonable opinion about style, you have a good chance to defend it, because people won't care too much.

Depends on the country, but I think in general, not all reviewers get to approve the final version of your thesis. Some suggestions of those who do not, especially suggestions about style, can be silently ignored.

If "third person", as in "he" or "she", is actually what you meant to say then it does not seem common in the West, which makes it more likely that you can just ignore this suggestion.

I am in favor of clear writing and against the academic attitude. All that said, I would still go ahead and write it like a normal journal article. Use the third person and the "we/our" for most of the results. After all, you will probably add at least your advisor to the co-author list of papers coming out (or have already done so if you already wrote the journal articles).

Just scanned my thesis, which was mostly stitched together chemistry papers. Not like a European one where all it is, is the papers themselves. But pretty clearly taking different papers and with some minor edits changing them into chapters (e.g. combining redundant methods). I was pretty much either talking about the chemicals or using the passive voice or saying "our" for discussion of interpretation and such. But these were sections where I had co-authors, professor at least.

I did have one minor area (other than acknowledgements) where I used first person and got no static for it. Within the Intro, after giving a review of previous work, I discussed the research objectives (in a one para section called that) and used "my" in context of "my goals changed during the student. Initial my goal was X; subsequently it was Y. Didn't get any static for this--it was a helpful para to explain why the chapters to follow in the thesis were connected.

There are a lot of other areas where you can cut the crap and be honest (for example, I shared some important lab safety learnings and equipment construction that was helpful to subsequent students but really fit in a thesis more than a results journal article. I did that on purpose because the main audience was/is future group members.

But I wouldn't make a big deal of the impersonal style. Some of it is good (keeping attention on the chemical, not the researcher). Some of it is bad (pompousness, or not taking responsibility). But overall, it's not worth worrying about.

Get the union card done. Thesis is pass-fail and very little read. Don't mess with it too much, just wrap something up, get a job and boogie. Defense committees can be very accommodating as long as you have published well (already showing ability to make solid contributions) and have gotten someone to hire you!

One quick solution could be to find another example of a thesis that has already been approved by your institution which also uses first person singular. If there is a precedent it might justify your use.

I remember that one of my reviewer comments about "aesthetic" language issues like this which I ignored: the reviewer suggested that I had not used a real word, I provided a link to a dictionary definition of the word, stated that it was a matter of preference, and that I would keep my original choice of word. (I do not claim that all comments can be rejected in this way, but my point is that it is possible.)

• thanks, I have already found several precedents approved by my department. –  jsxs Commented Apr 3, 2018 at 4:07

In my opinion, avoiding first person and sticking to passive voice is beneficial for two reasons, one philosophical and one practical.

Starting with the practical - parts of the thesis are likely to be used as a base for subsequent journal articles. As the OP says, journal articles have a fairly set format. By sticking to the same format in the thesis, a lot of redundant writing effort could be saved. It would also be a sort of dry run- one can identify problematic/ambiguous phrases/paragraphs, which are to be avoided in later manuscripts.

On the philosophical front, any piece of scientific writing should, IMO, primarily convey scientific results and secondarily the methodology used by the researcher. Certainly, researchers deserve credit for novel methods followed, but this shouldn't overshadow the results/inferences. I believe passive voice acts as a safeguard against this.

• Could I know why this answer was down-voted? I'm new to the site and would like to avoid mistakes/oversights made in the future. Thanks. –  AppliedAcademic Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 12:19
• 3 Your practical point is a really good one. (Arguably, that reviewer should've spoken up about it before the thesis was mostly written.) You're answering the question: "Could anybody give me some suggestion?" by supporting a change to third person: therefore no need to tangle with the reviewer. You may have gotten down-voted because people think the novel part of this question is how to deal with that committee member, rather than the writing itself (covered in previous questions). ::shrug:: –  cactus_pardner Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 17:52
• 2 Active voice is best. Using the passive voice is not good. –  Martin F Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 20:12
• @MartinF because.... –  Fábio Dias Commented Mar 31, 2018 at 23:14
• 1 @FábioDias -- The active voice is usually more concise and easier to understand. See writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/CCS_activevoice.html , owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02 or quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/… –  Martin F Commented Apr 3, 2018 at 23:33

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How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

• Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
• Answer your project’s main research question.
• Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
• Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

• Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
• Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
• Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

• The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

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• Knowledge Base
• Nouns and pronouns
• First-Person Pronouns | List, Examples & Explanation

First-Person Pronouns | List, Examples & Explanation

Published on October 17, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 4, 2023.

First-person pronouns are words such as “I” and “us” that refer either to the person who said or wrote them (singular), or to a group including the speaker or writer (plural). Like second- and third-person pronouns , they are a type of personal pronoun .

They’re used without any issue in everyday speech and writing, but there’s an ongoing debate about whether they should be used in academic writing .

There are four types of first-person pronouns—subject, object, possessive, and reflexive—each of which has a singular and a plural form. They’re shown in the table below and explained in more detail in the following sections.

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Table of contents

First-person subject pronouns (“i” and “we”), first-person object pronouns (“me” and “us”), first-person possessive pronouns (“mine” and “ours”), first-person reflexive pronouns (“myself” and “ourselves”), first-person pronouns in academic writing, other interesting language articles, frequently asked questions.

Used as the subject of a verb , the first-person subject pronoun takes the form I (singular) or we (plural). Note that unlike all other pronouns, “I” is invariably capitalized .

A subject is the person or thing that performs the action described by the verb. In most sentences, it appears at the start or after an introductory phrase, just before the verb it is the subject of.

To be honest, we haven’t made much progress.

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Used as the object of a verb or preposition , the first-person object pronoun takes the form me (singular) or us (plural). Objects can be direct or indirect, but the object pronoun should be used in both cases.

• A direct object is the person or thing that is acted upon (e.g., “she threatened us ”).
• An indirect object is the person or thing that benefits from that action (e.g., “Jane gave me a gift”).
• An object pronoun should also be used after a preposition (e.g., “come with me ”).

It makes no difference to me .

Will they tell us where to go?

First-person possessive pronouns are used to represent something that belongs to you. They are mine (singular) and ours (plural).

They are closely related to the first-person possessive determiners my (singular) and our (plural). The difference is that determiners must modify a noun (e.g., “ my book”), while pronouns stand on their own (e.g., “that one is mine ”).

It was a close game, but in the end, victory was ours .

A reflexive pronoun is used instead of an object pronoun when the object of the sentence is the same as the subject. The first-person reflexive pronouns are myself (singular) and ourselves (plural). They occur with reflexive verbs, which describe someone acting upon themselves (e.g., “I wash myself ”).

The same words can also be used as intensive pronouns , in which case they place greater emphasis on the person carrying out the action (e.g., “I’ll do it myself ”).

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While first-person pronouns are used without any problem in most contexts, there’s an ongoing debate about their use in academic writing . They have traditionally been avoided in many academic disciplines for two main reasons:

• To maintain an objective tone
• To keep the focus on the material and not the author

However, the first person is increasingly standard in many types of academic writing. Some style guides, such as APA , require the use of first-person pronouns (and determiners) when referring to your own actions and opinions. The tendency varies based on your field of study:

• The natural sciences and other STEM fields (e.g., medicine, biology, engineering) tend to avoid first-person pronouns, although they accept them more than they used to.
• The social sciences and humanities fields (e.g., sociology, philosophy, literary studies) tend to allow first-person pronouns.

Avoiding first-person pronouns

If you do need to avoid using first-person pronouns (and determiners ) in your writing, there are three main techniques for doing so.

Each technique has different advantages and disadvantages. For example, the passive voice can sometimes result in dangling modifiers that make your text less clear. If you are allowed to use first-person pronouns, retaining them is the best choice.

Using first-person pronouns appropriately

If you’re allowed to use the first person, you still shouldn’t overuse it. First-person pronouns (and determiners ) are used for specific purposes in academic writing.

Avoid arbitrarily inserting your own thoughts and feelings in a way that seems overly subjective and adds nothing to your argument:

• In my opinion, …
• I think that …
• I dislike …

Pronoun consistency

Whether you may or may not refer to yourself in the first person, it’s important to maintain a consistent point of view throughout your text. Don’t shift between the first person (“I,” “we”) and the third person (“the author,” “the researchers”) within your text.

• The researchers interviewed 12 participants, and our results show that all were in agreement.
• We interviewed 12 participants, and our results show that all were in agreement.
• The researchers interviewed 12 participants, and the results show that all were in agreement.

The editorial “we”

Regardless of whether you’re allowed to use the first person in your writing, you should avoid the editorial “we.” This is the use of plural first-person pronouns (or determiners) such as “we” to make a generalization about people. This usage is regarded as overly vague and informal.

Broad generalizations should be avoided, and any generalizations you do need to make should be expressed in a different way, usually with third-person plural pronouns (or occasionally the impersonal pronoun “one”). You also shouldn’t use the second-person pronoun “you” for generalizations.

• When we are given more freedom, we can work more effectively.
• When employees are given more freedom, they can work more effectively.
• As we age, we tend to become less concerned with others’ opinions of us .
• As people age, they tend to become less concerned with others’ opinions of them .

If you want to know more about nouns , pronouns , verbs , and other parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other language articles with explanations and examples.

Nouns & pronouns

• Common nouns
• Collective nouns
• Personal pronouns
• Proper nouns
• Second-person pronouns
• Verb tenses
• Phrasal verbs
• Types of verbs
• Active vs passive voice
• Subject-verb agreement
• Interjections
• Conjunctions
• Prepositions

Yes, the personal pronoun we and the related pronouns us , ours , and ourselves are all first-person. These are the first-person plural pronouns (and our is the first-person plural possessive determiner ).

If you’ve been told not to refer to yourself in the first person in your academic writing , this means you should also avoid the first-person plural terms above . Switching from “I” to “we” is not a way of avoiding the first person, and it’s illogical if you’re writing alone.

If you need to avoid first-person pronouns , you can instead use the passive voice or refer to yourself in the third person as “the author” or “the researcher.”

Personal pronouns are words like “he,” “me,” and “yourselves” that refer to the person you’re addressing, to other people or things, or to yourself. Like other pronouns, they usually stand in for previously mentioned nouns (antecedents).

They are called “personal” not because they always refer to people (e.g., “it” doesn’t) but because they indicate grammatical person ( first , second , or third person). Personal pronouns also change their forms based on number, gender, and grammatical role in a sentence.

In grammar, person is how we distinguish between the speaker or writer (first person), the person being addressed (second person), and any other people, objects, ideas, etc. referred to (third person).

Person is expressed through the different personal pronouns , such as “I” ( first-person pronoun ), “you” ( second-person pronoun ), and “they” (third-person pronoun). It also affects how verbs are conjugated, due to subject-verb agreement (e.g., “I am” vs. “you are”).

In fiction, a first-person narrative is one written directly from the perspective of the protagonist . A third-person narrative describes the protagonist from the perspective of a separate narrator. A second-person narrative (very rare) addresses the reader as if they were the protagonist.

Sources in this article

We strongly encourage students to use sources in their work. You can cite our article (APA Style) or take a deep dive into the articles below.

Caulfield, J. (2023, July 04). First-Person Pronouns | List, Examples & Explanation. Scribbr. Retrieved September 1, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/first-person-pronouns/

Aarts, B. (2011).  Oxford modern English grammar . Oxford University Press.

Butterfield, J. (Ed.). (2015).  Fowler’s dictionary of modern English usage  (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Garner, B. A. (2016).  Garner’s modern English usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

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Research Foundations: Develop a Thesis Statement

• Information Literacy
• The Information Timeline
• Popular, Scholarly, & Trade Publications
• Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary Materials
• Information Formats
• Evaluate Information
• Chapter 1 Self Quiz
• The Pre-Research Process
• Decide on a Topic
• Find Background Information
• Refine Your Topic
• Develop a Thesis Statement
• Choose Keywords
• Create Search Statements
• Chapter 2 Self Quiz
• Search the Library Catalog
• Call Numbers
• Request Books
• Book Research Streamlined
• Viewing eBooks
• Access Media
• Chapter 3 Self Quiz
• About Library Databases
• Find Articles in Databases
• Modify Your Search
• Reading Scholarly Articles
• Chapter 4 Self Quiz
• Citation Styles
• Locate Citation Information
• Copyright & Fair Use
• Creative Commons
• Find & Attribute Images
• Chapter 5 Self Quiz

Developing a Thesis Statement

Now that you've learned about your topic through background research and developed your topic into a research question, you can formulate a solid thesis statement . The thesis statement can be looked at as the answer to your research question. It guides the focus of your research and the direction of your arguments, and also prevents any unnecessary tangents within your project. A strong thesis statement will always make it easier to maintain a clear direction while conducting your information search.

Thesis statements are one sentence long and are focused, clear, declarative, and written in third person voice. Read the sections below for more information and view examples.

Focus on a single position or point of view in your thesis statement.  You cannot effectively address multiple perspectives within a single paper, as you want to make coherent points to support your position.

Weak Thesis: Underfunded arts programs, underpaid teachers, and standardized testing are all factors in underachieving students in public schools.

Stronger Thesis: The emphasis on standardized testing is a critical factor in the underperformance of public school students.

Present your argument or position clearly and precisely. A clear thesis statement will avoid generalizations and make your position known.

Weak Thesis: The lack of funding in public schools is a major issue in the American education system.

Stronger Thesis: Underfunding arts programs in public schools does not adequately prepare students for college.

3. Declarative

Present your position or point of view as a statement or declarative sentence. Your research question helped guide your initial searching so you could learn more about your topic. Now that you have completed that step, you can extract a thesis statement based on the research you have discovered.

Weak Thesis: Does car exhaust impact climate change?

Stronger Thesis: Car exhaust is a leading contributor to climate change.

4. Third Person

Write your thesis statement in third person voice. Rather than addressing "I," "we," "you," "my," or "our" in your thesis, look at the larger issues that affect a greater number of participants. Think in terms like "citizens," "students," "artists," "teachers," "researchers," etc.

Weak Thesis: I think using your cell phone while driving is the leading cause of traffic deaths for people in my age group.

Stronger Thesis: Cell phone use is the leading cause of traffic deaths in teenagers.

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• Last Updated: May 2, 2024 9:24 AM
• URL: https://libguides.seminolestate.edu/researchfoundations