Author Topic: Is the multiple use of the first-person "I" necessarily a redundancy?  (Read 12636 times)

Joe Carillo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4646
  • Karma: +202/-2
    • View Profile
    • Email
Questions sent in by e-mail by forces20, Forum member (September 9, 2010):

I approached my teacher in English and a journalism teacher to check my essay. The subject of that essay is “How I can make peace come alive in my world.” The journalism teacher put this note on the second draft of my essay: “If ever possible, avoid using the (redundancy) “I” same word in a sentence or paragraph.”

I met her this morning and she told me to avoid the overuse of “I” and to use so-called “imagery” instead so that although I am not using the word “I,” it will be clear that I am the one speaking in the essay. The idea of using “imagery” is something perplexing and difficult to me. Are there ways by which you can avoid the use of many “I’s” when writing an essay?

My second question is this: Which of these two constructions is correct: “the dignity of my fellowmen” or “the dignities of my fellowmen”?

My reply to forces20:


I must say at the outset that your journalism teacher gave you a very tall order by advising you to avoid overusing the first-person pronoun “I” in your essay. It’s actually a very sensible, well-meaning suggestion for professional writers and journalists, for the use of too many “I’s” in an essay or feature story can indeed be an eyesore when read silently and an assault to the ears when read aloud. But asking beginning writers to follow the minimal-“I” or no-“I” prescription often results in English that seems to be walking on tenterhooks—strained, contrived, and unnatural-sounding. In job application letters, for instance, people brainwashed by their teachers to practice total “I” avoidance usually come up with stilted constructions like “The undersigned has the honor to apply for the position of so and so.” Constructions like that efficiently suppress the “I’s,” but they also make sentences so staid and legal-sounding. I would rather encourage students or beginning writers to use “I” freely in their writing so they can naturally develop their facility for self-expression; as they mature and get exposed to more examples of professional writing, they will just naturally develop the facility for avoiding the use of too many “I’s” in their compositions.

I am perplexed by your teacher’s suggestion to use “imagery” as a means for avoiding the repetitive use of “I” in your essay. Frankly, I don’t know what she means by that; I suggest you ask her to explain it in some detail. Perhaps this is some new writing technique that you and I and the members of this Forum can learn from her and profit from. As far as I know, however, the only practical and sensible way to grammatically reduce the usage of “I” is to combine sentences or clauses that individually use it. Take this statement, for example: “I love to read. I love to write. And I love to listen to music.” We can use “I” only once by combining the three sentences as follows: “I love to read, to write, and to listen to music.” We can render this combined sentence even more concisely as follows: “I love to read, write, and listen to music.”

There are some rhetorical forms, however, where clause combining to reduce “I” usage can be counterproductive or even destructive. Take this famous tricolon* of Julius Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The combined version, “I came, saw, and conquered” is dull and tepid, having lost practically all of the drama and power of the original.


The point of all this is that the frequent use of “I” in essays and other forms of exposition isn’t always undesirable, and it certainly isn’t necessarily a bad thing to use it more than once or twice in a sentence or paragraph. It really all depends on the writer’s style and intent.  

As to your second question, the correct phrasing is “the dignity of my fellowmen.” The word “dignity” in the sense of “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed” is a mass noun, so it need not take the plural form “dignities” when used in reference to two or more people. However, when used in the sense of “high rank, office, or position” or of “a legal title of nobility or honor,” it can take the plural form “dignities”—but this is obviously not the sense of the phrase “the dignity of my fellowmen” that you presented.
-------
*Tricolon – a sentence with three clearly defined parts of equal length usually independent clauses and of increasing power.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2017, 09:19:46 AM by Joe Carillo »

Justine A.

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 93
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Is the multiple use of the first-person "I" necessarily a redundancy?
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2010, 05:14:48 PM »
I am also confused to her term "imagery" to reduce the use of I  in my essay.Anyway,thanks a lot to your reply :) :)
« Last Edit: March 13, 2014, 07:01:05 AM by Joe Carillo »