Yes, We Are Allowed To Use “I”

I agree with Kate McKinney Maddalena’s article, “I need you to say ‘I’”: Why First Person Is Important in College Writing” because as long as I can remember, avoiding “I” in an essay was mandatory until I reached college. It felt like a crime to use “I.” My teachers would call me out for using first-person and made me feel like my whole essay was a failure. I always believed it was erroneous to forbid students from expressing their points of view because it would cut short our authentic ideas and limit our ability to write. After reading Maddalena’s article, I realized that teachers wanted students to be more objective and formal, rather than relying upon personal experience. The point of avoiding “I”  was to stop students from being biased in their essays/writing. The stigma of avoiding “I” in writing, limits students from their true inner ideas. How can we express our voices merely based on research and facts? This is why I felt relieved in college because some professors value more the expression of our voices than objectivity. Even though there are specific writing prompts where first-person is not recommended, radically eliminating the use of first-person pronouns should not be an obligated rule. The author explains the argument of why first-person is important in college writing, in four candid points.

Reasons why first-person is important

1. Objectivity and Integrity

In this section of the article, Maddalena gives an example of scientific writing. Not too long ago, scientific writing avoided first-person because of the preconceived notion that it would not be objective and may influence scientific studies. Over the years scientists came up with the “observer effect” term, which provides readers with an idea of a physical system conducting studies rather than an “invisible hand.” Maddalena reinforces that when taking a stance on an issue, the first person just makes sense. Defining your perspective gives your reader context for your stance(Maddelena.)

2. Clarifying Who’s Saying What

Under this section, Maddelena infers that your voice is highly important when using academic resources from other scholars. The readers may misinterpret the scholar’s voice with your voice. This section suggests the more voices added to a writing prompt, the more confusing it gets. Our voices and perspectives have to be established clearly.

3. Ownership, Intellectual Involvement, and Exigency

In this section, one of the main focuses is the author encouraging students to take pride in their intellectual work because it is important on many levels. Without ownership and intellectual involvement, the writer has less credibility and clarity in an argument.

4. Rhetorical Sophistication

Maddelena talks about the use of rhetorical clarity. The use of first person is important in writing because it avoids becoming a summary of an article/document or becoming redundant. 

First-person gives students freedom in writing

 Meddelena demonstrates that using “I” is not prohibited in college writing as long as it is used coherently. First-person pronoun gives freedom in writing to express what comes from the heart. It is very difficult to provide our perspectives when objectivity has become the main goal in certain writing. Avoiding the “I” word has honestly limited my ideas in certain case scenarios because of the fear of following professors’ instructions. It is a relief to know that Meddelena’s article motivates students to write “I” without the stigma that is not formal writing.