GOGSoc MkII

Reply 3980

14

apotoftea

Yup, they spoke with plums in their mouths, wore Jack Wills, short skirts and ugg boots. Oh and always mentioned daddyyyy.

Didn't you know? :yep:

*tries very hard to shake off the image of a pony in a short skirt and ugg boots munching plums* :ninja:

Reply 3981

apotoftea

19

hobnob

*tries very hard to shake off the image of a pony in a short skirt and ugg boots munching plums* :ninja:

Hehe Thelwell meets Primark :biggrin:

Reply 3982

Socrates

17

Da Bachtopus

But writing in the first person is also grammatically correct?

This always confused me. Half the time I had lecturers saying don't write in 1st person and the other half saying writing in 3rd person is too detached. Meh.

Reply 3983

apotoftea

19

I loathe writing in first person. Or should that be "apotoftea loathes writing in first person"?

Reply 3984

hobnob

14

apotoftea

I loathe writing in first person. Or should that be "apotoftea loathes writing in first person"?

"One loathes writing in the first person". :wink:

Reply 3985

musicbloke

17

Socrates

This always confused me. Half the time I had lecturers saying don't write in 1st person and the other half saying writing in 3rd person is too detached. Meh.

I generally don't get the point of writing in first person for academic stuff. In school when you're young and retarded you always have things like "therefore I believe..." in a conclusion, but once you're at university it's obvious that you believe it because you write it, and your conclusions should be significantly less caught up with the fact that it's you who has come to them. I've never been encouraged to write in anything but third person in an academic setting, so I wonder what your lecturers are on about. :s-smilie:

MB

Reply 3986

Drogue

19

I don't know what I wrote essays in. I just wrote them :o:

At school, I was always told never to say "I believe" as it's clear you believe it when you're the one writing it. However I disagree, as I want to contrast when I'm saying something that's true and when it's something I believe to be true. In economics, at least, that's critical since sometimes you're using a construct (given perfect competition...) and so things can be true or false, and at other times you're discussing the real world, when things never are.

Reply 3987

Socrates

17

musicbloke

I generally don't get the point of writing in first person for academic stuff. In school when you're young and retarded you always have things like "therefore I believe..." in a conclusion, but once you're at university it's obvious that you believe it because you write it, and your conclusions should be significantly less caught up with the fact that it's you who has come to them. I've never been encouraged to write in anything but third person in an academic setting, so I wonder what your lecturers are on about. :s-smilie:

MB

When you're being critical and still having to mention something which you don't agree with in order to strengthen your argument. Though yes, that could still be written in third person, but then I see journal articles by academics written in first person and I get confused again.

Reply 3988

rottcodd

3

One thinks a blend of both is best. Third person for the majority of the time, then ocassionally drop in the first person when one wants to make a point that would suit it or when one just wants to say something weird like: 'Perkins aggresively points out in The Pertinence of Punctuation that he once saw a comma in the wrong place on a sign advertising pumpkins and courgettes for a fruit and vegetable stall in Camden - Well, I once saw a hedge but nobody gives a flying rat's bum about that'. (I've never said anything like that, but I would like the freedom to do so in an essay. Any academic which tells you off for using first or third person rather than telling you off for writing crap, is an idiot and should be kicked in the face).

Reply 3989

oriel historian

2

Okay, since I seem to be (once again) out of step with my colleagues here! I wonder what is really so wrong with this:

"In recovering materialism, we cannot fail to pay attention to th key criticisms made of it by the postmodernists and in this way I wish to pick up on the pleas made by various historians amongst whom, I wish to call on just three ... "

To my mind, that sentence implies engagement by the individual and not this daft detatchment based on the Rankean tradition. If it is accepted that historians are writing a form of art, then they accept there is a narrative voice. Not all pieces of literature are written from the third person and it seems obvious to me that using one or any of these other rather upper class dodges is to imply that there is a single way of writing academic pieces. There just isn't.

Reply 3990

The Boosh

17

I write in first, second and third person styles, and a lot of the literature I read is written in different styles too. For me, the style itself reflects the purpose of the writing. A lot of phenomenological critical work is written from both the first and third person perspective. These sentences are on the same page:

1. "[My] body is my point of view on the world"
2. "Of course, form a third-person point of view, the structures and capacities of the body are mere contingent, arbitrary facts").

The second person is also found, but it tends to be more in popular cognitive and functionalist psychology that speaks directly to "you".

Reply 3991

The Boosh

17

oriel historian

Okay, since I seem to be (once again) out of step with my colleagues here! I wonder what is really so wrong with this:

"In recovering materialism, we cannot fail to pay attention to th key criticisms made of it by the postmodernists and in this way I wish to pick up on the pleas made by various historians amongst whom, I wish to call on just three ... "

To my mind, that sentence implies engagement by the individual and not this daft detatchment based on the Rankean tradition. If it is accepted that historians are writing a form of art, then they accept there is a narrative voice. Not all pieces of literature are written from the third person and it seems obvious to me that using one or any of these other rather upper class dodges is to imply that there is a single way of writing academic pieces. There just isn't.

An important question is: what is the difference between a narrative and a grand narrative?

Reply 3992

oriel historian

2

The Boosh

An important question is: what is the difference between a narrative and a grand narrative?

Yeah, this is true. But all forms of history have a narrative of some form built into them. Historians use grand narratives all the time - I mean even Tory historians like Gibbon or Liberal-Whiggish ones like Macaulay have their grand narratives of progress or whatever.

Reply 3993

The Boosh

17

oriel historian

Yeah, this is true. But all forms of history have a narrative of some form built into them. Historians use grand narratives all the time - I mean even Tory historians like Gibbon or Liberal-Whiggish ones like Macaulay have their grand narratives of progress or whatever.

Indeed, and there are narratives at work implicitly in everyday language too. The threat can be when we don't see them at work, i.e. when we take certain things about life for granted.

Reply 3994

apotoftea

19

hobnob

"One loathes writing in the first person". :wink:

One thanks you for the correcting of my grammar :biggrin:

Oh this could go on for a while.

Well this morning was good yay :biggrin:

Now to write my sucking up "you're so wonderful" email. Hmmm

Reply 3995

Da Bachtopus

12

Socrates

This always confused me. Half the time I had lecturers saying don't write in 1st person and the other half saying writing in 3rd person is too detached. Meh.

That isn't a question of grammar, though, but register / style. Grammar is easy to be correct/incorrect about. There are two options. Style is murkier: it's about (in)appropriateness, which has a scale, not just two categories.

Reply 3996

Da Bachtopus

12

musicbloke

I generally don't get the point of writing in first person for academic stuff. In school when you're young and retarded you always have things like "therefore I believe..." in a conclusion, but once you're at university it's obvious that you believe it because you write it, and your conclusions should be significantly less caught up with the fact that it's you who has come to them. I've never been encouraged to write in anything but third person in an academic setting, so I wonder what your lecturers are on about. :s-smilie:

MB

Writing "therefore I believe" is noddy. But writing "I will argue" or "I detect here" or whatever seems perfectly reasonable. Even "as I have suggested [above/ whatever]". It depends on the maturity of your writing as a whole. I also have no problem with implicating myself in what I write, for exactly the reason you say "it's obvious you believe it because you write it": for that very reason it shouldn't produce a single bit of cognitive dissonance, nor does it somehow imply that /your/ having come to those conclusions is more important than they are. In fact, it's far more natural than trying to delete all first-person references. The only thing to avoid is sounding like an idiot writing schoolwork ("I think this because...); but I hardly think this is a danger any of us need fear.

Also since what interests me tends to involve a hermeneutics that implicates each reader's consciousness directly, then the very fact that reading literature is something we do in the first-person isn't something I want to hide.

Reply 3997

hobnob

14

apotoftea

Well this morning was good yay :biggrin:

Now to write my sucking up "you're so wonderful" email. Hmmm

Dear Dr Whatever,
To begin with, let me start by telling you an anecdote from my early youth, because I believe it illustrates the reason why I am emailing you and I have 2000 characters available to me so I may as well use them. Ever since I was a cute little three-year-old with blonde curls and an - as I am told - most adorable lisp, I have had two passions in life: history and ponies. But it was only after reading Dr Whatever's (i.e. your) magnificent work on the history of class struggle among Midlands badgers in the late Middle Ages that I discovered that my aim in life was to become a historian and not a professional pony-person, as I had originally intended. Having learnt how to use the internet - thanks to a B (four marks off an A :mad:

) in ICT - I located that brilliant academic and champion of working-class badgers (i.e. you) at the University of Royal Hither and Thither. And the rest is (no pun intended (well, no, actually it's very intended)) history. As I continue to worship the very ground you walk on and hold you in almost equal regard to ponies, please allow me to badger you into letting me start on my dissertation.
Yours ever
Affectionately and historically,
M. Doyle
PS: Let me write that damn dissertation. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on.

Or is that a bit too much? *heads over to the PS Helper forum to badger the experts* :p:

Reply 3998

apotoftea

19

Hobnob

Dear Dr Whatever,
To begin with, let me start by telling you an anecdote from my early youth, because I believe it illustrates the reason why I am emailing you and I have 2000 characters available to me so I may as well use them. Ever since I was a cute little three-year-old with blonde curls and an - as I am told - most adorable lisp, I have had two passions in life: history and ponies. But it was only after reading Dr Whatever's (i.e. your) magnificent work on the history of class struggle among Midlands badgers in the late Middle Ages that I discovered that my aim in life was to become a historian and not a professional pony-person, as I had originally intended. Having learnt how to use the internet - thanks to a B (four marks off an A ) in ICT - I located that brilliant academic and champion of working-class badgers (i.e. you) at the University of Royal Hither and Thither. And the rest is (no pun intended (well, no, actually it's very intended)) history. As I continue to worship the very ground you walk on and hold you in almost equal regard to ponies, please allow me to badger you into letting me start on my dissertation.
Yours ever
Affectionately and historically,
M. Doyle
PS: Let me write that damn dissertation. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on.
Or is that a bit too much? *heads over to the PS Helper forum to badger the experts*

Reply 3999

Socrates

17

That's repworthy, modnob :p:

GOGSoc MkII

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