JMNorris wrote:
I once had a student in a college course ask me if he was permited to
use the first person in a term paper. Ugh. I heard a rumor that the
Education Dept. at my school would automatically give an F for the use
of "I". Education Departments are generally the academically weakest in
any university. "I" is better than the royal "we", and "the author" is
downright stilted. Note that the royal "we" is still first person, just
not singular.
I think that, in most cases, the author is using "we" to mean "you and
I", i.e. the author and the reader. I like that -- it makes me feel like
the author is saying "come on, walk with me while I explain this".
I would most definitely cringe if I ever read a research paper in my own
field, theoretical physics, that was written in first person singular.
Author: "After performing the above transformation, I can now write
the Lagrangian density as ..."
Me: "Hey, wait a minute! YOU write the Lagrangian like that?
What about me, can't I do that too? Are we talking
mathematics here, or are we discussing your personal
preference in Lagrangians?"
For experimental papers I'd find it more acceptable, as they to a larger
extent describe the author's personal experience, which is not
necessarily reproducible by others. On the other hand, papers in
experimental sciences tend to have dozens of authors and co-authors
anyway, so the plural "we" is still the appropriate thing to use. ^^
For educational books like Andrei's I like the first person singular
style, as long as it's not overused.
-Lars