How I Can Help Your Writing
Being the First Person in Business Writing
A few days ago Scott Korb, a teacher of college composition, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about the “soul-crushing student essay.” Since I taught college composition at New York University for eleven years, I was interested in his assessment of the writing he received and found it all too familiar. His diatribe is ultimately sympathetic to his student-writers, who were taught in high school to write at an “appropriate and ‘objective’ distance from topics they often seem disinterested in.” Once in college they are surprised that the rules have changed and end up asking in puzzled confusion, over and over again: “You mean I can write in the first person?”
Yes, of course, my colleagues and I would answer. In fact, you should write in the first person and you are always writing in the first person, ie. as yourself. Even when you write objectively and relay “just the facts” you are there on the page, managing the flow of information and shaping the tone and material. So you should be exercising your judgment, or your I, whether or not that personal pronoun appears.
But my students were always astonished at that because “I was never allowed to use I in high school” or “I was taught it was wrong.” They usually couldn’t quite articulate why it was wrong but they had internalized the rule and sometimes it took them all semester to unlearn it. Because after all, it’s complicated. And, as usual, the real answer is “it depends.”
There are extremes, for example. Conversations on social media or online forums absolutely depend on the first person: they are mostly opinions for which that “I” is the only source. That’s often where the “I” gets its bad name. On the other hand, most scientific studies still absolutely exclude the first person. Experiments are meant to be replicable so it shouldn’t matter who conducts it. Research is supposed to be neutral and objective, whereas the personal is by definition subjective. These assumptions have been challenged all over the place, but most scientific publications still discourage using a narrative “I.” But avoiding it, as Korb notes, means that
“no matter who [students] are in private, when I first encounter their writing, they use only the public passive voice: The text was read. The test was taken.
It’s never: I read the text. I took the test.”
That passive voice hides personality as well as agency and writing conventions are shifting in favor of personality. Even academic publishing and journalism have been allowing in more and more “I.”
Why? The best reason is that most writing needs to have a point of view and the “I” is the easiest way to define it. For our books at Sense & Respond Press we commission authors with specific expertise to share that expertise, so we (and our readers) definitely want to know who they are and where their author-ity comes from. We don’t want a description of an innovation process. Or an encyclopedia article to answer the question “What is Agile?” We want our authors to take readers through their own learning process about the innovation process — or at least suggest how they got there. We want someone to explain what agile means to them in this-or-that context. Instead of weakening an argument by making it “personal,” using your own experience makes it stronger by showing where the opinions come from.
Besides, hearing someone tell their own story makes the material more interesting. It rounds out the facts that might otherwise seem bland or dry. The personal, the narrator’s voice, becomes the glue that shapes those facts into a narrative that will stick in readers’ heads. For example, in our most recently published book, Making Progress: The 7 Responsibilities of the Innovation Leader, Ryan Jacoby included anecdotes from his consulting experience with clients (and cleared the permission to use them). Even when he didn’t name the client or the product it conveys the authority for the rest of his advice. By the end of the book when he distinguishes innovation from transformation by saying ”you already know I don’t think that’s your job” you trust his opinion.
That said, having a point of view doesn’t depend on an actual “I.” You don’t need to say “I value continuous learning” to show that you do. You communicate your values, assumptions, and opinions through every choice you make — from vocabulary to examples to tone. Ryan’s book opens with a quote from Gordon MacKenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball that tells readers something indirectly about who Ryan is and sets the tone for the book. The occasional “I” can clarify and underline your book’s position and the occasional personal story can strengthen your authority and engage your readers. With or without a visible “I”, a good book depends on a clear point of view.
Some takeaways:
— Think of using the first person as a dial or a spectrum, not an on/off switch. The decision is usually not whether to bring in an “I,” but how and when. When does it establish authority and when does it detract from it? In what contexts? The sentence “I hate road maps” is unlikely to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, but describing your own experience with them could be persuasive for some readers. Ask yourself in each instance: does your “I” bring something new to the table?
— Use your own experience to connect with readers. That’s less obvious than it seems. You can become a proxy reader who is figuring out the material, answering your own questions, solving problems as you write — just as they are as they read. You are always the invisible guide behind the words but sometimes you can be their guide within the text too. Korb, for example, begins his piece with his feelings of frustration as a teacher and ends it with memories of his own youth, which helps him and us empathize with his students.
If you’ve noticed, I’ve given you very little of me here, despite my topic. In this case, I think all you need to know is my teaching background to push off from. Then I can fade into my opinions, expressed through other voices. My choices of quotes and examples show my judgment at work, which as readers you’ll either buy or you won’t. Writers, that’s a template for you—from me.