Personal Pronouns in Academic Writing

This assignment examines the use of personal pronouns and emotional language in academic writing. It presents different perspectives from scholars like Coffin & Hewings, Harwood, Le Ha, and Luzon, outlining the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The essay emphasizes the writer's responsibility in choosing the appropriate context for these elements to maintain accuracy and engage readers.

Running head: PERSUASIVE ESSAY
Persuasive Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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PERSUASIVE ESSAY
General Statement Introduction The main purpose of academic research writing is to
inform the readers about the researched topic in spite
of entertaining them as the creative writing does.
Hence, it is advisable to the apprentice scholars to
avoid using personal pronouns and emotional language
in their academic research paper. Academic writing is
comparatively where the scholars are to produce
information supported by the previous work done on
the topic and the research carried out by the scholar.
Using personal pronouns and emotional language will
mislead the scholars to think about the authenticity of
the provided information. Moreover, both the reader
and writer in academic paper rushes for the useful
information from the paper. Use of emotional language
can break the flow of information search
Discussion Coffin &
Hewings
(2003)
Different scholars perceive this view differently if they
should or should not make use of personal
pronunciations in their academic reports. Coffin and
Hewings (2003) for instance rejects the idea of using
personal pronounces in the academic writing as it may
influence the writers opinion and distract the readers
from gaining the truth ion the matter. It is because
individual opinion regarding a matter can considerably
vary and it may not reveal the actuality of the fact.
According to them, every discipline has some specific

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PERSUASIVE ESSAY
words that cannot be used in other disciplines. These
academic words have their value in particular field out
of which, it loses its appropriateness. For instance, the
words used in physics may considerably vary from the
ones used in the field of economy. Both the words in
these fields may overlap and are synonyms, still they
fail to bring the essence of the writing and disrupt the
flow of reading. Similarly, the use of personal
pronounces in the academic report to some extent
jeopardize the report of articles’ accurate and
professional. It can even mislead the reader and create
wrong impression of the topic under discussion.
Harwood
(2005)
Harwood (2005) on the other hand disagrees this
concept. Harwood in his article demonstrated how
personal pronouns could increase the essence of the
writing and facilitate in creating a bond between the
readers and the writer. He presented his opinion
reflecting articles of different disciplines that reveals
importance of personal pronouns in increasing
newsworthiness and novelty of their work. The use of
personal pronouns can bring politeness by describing
or reviewing the facts and elaborate the argument on
behalf of the community. It also helps the author to
organise the paper and highlight the contemporary

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PERSUASIVE ESSAY
modifications made in the subject under study.
Le Ha
(2009)
Emotional language on the other hand is only
appropriate in the literature disciplines. It loses it
validity in the academic realm where the disciplines
are based on more solid scientific faced. For instance,
it will be inappropriate to use emotional language in
describing the researches and experiments that are the
core of the scientific disciplines. The readers always
seek for the information the article wants to
communicate instead of the language ornament (Le
Ha, 2009). Le Ha (2009) in his paper ‘Strategic,
passionate, but academic: Am I allowed in my
writing?’ cited an example of a French writer named
Margrate Duras. Duras in one of her novel used
colours other than blue in describing the sky to
increase the emotion of the readers. However, this kind
of usage in scientific article will cause the article to
lose its validity. The use of these words fails in
conveying the actual findings and in convincing the
readers with scientific facts.
Luzon
(2009)
The writer also needs to reflect his or her viewpoint in
their writing to better explain the fact and maintaining
the flow of the article. Luzon (2009) supports the view
that writer needs to decide where to put his point of
view without disrupting the flow of the article that

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PERSUASIVE ESSAY
might bore the readers. According to him, it will be
impossible to be impartial for even the academic
writing. It is also necessary for the writer to reflect his
or her personal point of view to reflect his
understanding of the topic. Without it, the article might
become tasteless for the readers and loose its purpose
on the course. The readers might feel that the writer
has jotted down the information from the works of
other scholars and put into his, which in turn loose its
value.
Conclusion The above study reflects that the use of personal
pronouns and emotional language both have their
advantages and disadvantages. Despite the fact that
maximum number of the academic articles requires
high standard of context, and needs to be highly
accurate, it also needs to be vivid and interesting. It is
the writer’s responsibility to choose the place and
context for using them.
References Coffin, C., & Hewings, A. (2003). Writing for
different disciplines.
Harwood, N. (2005). ‘We do not seem to have a
theory… The theory I present here attempts to
fill this gap’: Inclusive and exclusive pronouns
in academic writing. Applied linguistics, 26(3),
343-375.

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PERSUASIVE ESSAY
Le Ha, P. (2009). Strategic, passionate, but academic:
Am I allowed in my writing?. Journal of
English for Academic Purposes, 8(2), 134-146.
Luzón, M. J. (2009). The use of we in a learner corpus
of reports written by EFL Engineering
students. Journal of English for Academic
Purposes, 8(3), 192-206.