Personal Pronouns
Rule: Avoid first and second-person pronouns
First-person pronouns: I, me, we, and us
The reason you should avoid first-person pronouns in academic writing is that they can weaken the ethos (credibility and trustworthiness) of yourself as the author. Claims that you make as an author should be supported by evidence (such as research and logic). When you use a first-person pronoun such as "I," you risk indicating that your claims are merely your beliefs rather than substantiated reasoning.
Second-person pronoun: you
The pronoun "you" plagues both students (in their frequent use of it) and instructors (in their frequent reading of it) alike. Using "you" in a paper poses two potential issues: 1) it masks the real person or persons being referred to, and 2) it can offend or exclude the reader. Students often use "you" when they think they are discussing the general public but are more than likely actually talking about a specific group of people. Consider the example below:
Whenever a child asks for a snack, you should give him or her healthy options.
This sentence has created an ambiguous "you." Who is this mysterious person? Is he or she the only person who should give a child healthy snacks? It seems that the author is actually trying to refer to a broad but specific group of people: parents.
The direct address of "you" in the above sentence also indicates that the information is only relevant to and intended for readers who have children, thereby excluding those who do not.
A revision of the sentence to identify a specific group and include all interested readers might look like this:
Whenever children ask for a snack, parents should give them healthy options.
