Writing without using “I” is one of the many restrictions we were taught to help us learn how to write. Kate McKinney Maddalena in ‘”I Need You To Say “I”‘ wrote about how the less freedom we are given when learning to write, the more we can focus on specific skills. For example, it’s like learning the alphabet. You don’t learn it all in one go. You take it slow, learning one letter at a time. Writing throughout the years has been like that, one skill worked on at a time. However, it is time to break away from the mold we were put into and finally use all the skills we have learned in our own unique way.
Using “I” has been one of the many things forbidden to us, yet it is what can make our writing more meaningful. It makes sense to stay out of some writing, to make it less biased. For example writing a news article isn’t supposed to have us in the writing. It is simply meant to inform. Yet, some writing does improve with the use of “I”. Argumentative writing makes a lot of sense to have ” I” be included. After all, it is written with the perspective of the author in mind. The author is the one who feels a certain way about a certain argument. They decided what to include to get their point across. They choose their side, they figured out reasons to back themselves up, and now they are taking a stand in what they believe in. Argumentative writing isn’t the only writing that is better when “I” is included. It doesn’t have to be about what you are defending. When writing an essay you are sometimes asked to compare certain things like two books. You don’t need to be unbiased when comparing books. It is how you see the two connect or disconnect. Same with writing about what you liked or learned from a book, article, or so on. It is about what you yourself learned. What you thought about it. It would feel a lot more personal when “I” is included. This makes the reader feel better about what they are reading, since it is more emotional and less robotic. It is about how you feel so it makes sense to put “I” into it. Not only to put emotion into your work, but to make your work more yours. Telling all the readers this is what you thought and how you got there. It is time to start using “I” in writing, in order to improve your writing in many ways.
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