Timeline for Use of singular pronoun "I" in the acknowledgements
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 14 at 16:32 | comment | added | bof | Another place where I would use "I" is in admissions of ignorance or in statements of opinion: "I don't know if the converse holds." | |
| Mar 14 at 15:24 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Mar 14 at 15:04 | comment | added | Mikhail Katz | @YCor, The French "On" isn't much different from the English "One" though it seems to be used more frequently in French than in English, and also has a connotation of slightly closer to "we" than in English (as you point out). | |
| Mar 14 at 14:01 | comment | added | YCor | I tend to use "we" in the writing ("let us prove...") to involve the reader in the writing. This doesn't apply to acknowledgement, where I prefer "I". However, I remember at least once the published forced me to change to "we" because of this purported rule. [By the way in French we have "On" and "Nous" which is a useful distinction, "on" being more neutral than "nous" (although "on" often replaces "nous" in casual conversation). "On prouve que" is more neutral than "Nous prouvons que".] | |
| Mar 14 at 13:58 | history | edited | David White | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added tags, made the quotation marks match
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| Mar 14 at 13:51 | answer | added | David White | timeline score: 10 | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 17:57 | comment | added | KConrad | @TrevorGunn I see, but keep in mind that writing style is not a matter of pure logic. After all, when giving definitions in math we traditionally write if, not if and only if, e.g., "A group is called abelian if...". I have seen people ask elsewhere online why in math we don't use "if and only if" in definitions, since logically it's an equivalence. The answer is "By tradition that's not done, so you just get used to it". | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 12:58 | comment | added | Sera Gunn | @KConrad The objection is that if "we" is acceptable for multiple authors, then "I" is acceptable for a single author (in place of "the author"). | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 12:46 | comment | added | Joel David Hamkins | @MattF. Yes, ...<facepalm>. | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 11:36 | comment | added | KConrad | How is item 1 in your list an objection? It uses “we”. | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 10:49 | comment | added | Liviu Nicolaescu | The "We" vs "I" debate transcends the English language. I was taught to use "we" when I first wrote proofs in my mother's tongue (Romanian). In Latin rooted language, the "I" sounds a bit too personal and conceited. I suspect that Bourbaki played a role in spreading the impersonal "We". Check some of the best math writers (Weil, Serre, Weyl, Siegel, Hardy, Hirzebruch, Dieudonne Milnor, Atiyah, Grothendieck, Feller, Arnold, Kolmogorov,....) , see which style clicks with you and stick with it. On the other hand an acknowledgment is personal and I would use "I" unless I have co-authors. | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 9:05 | comment | added | user44143 | @mme’s reference is Paul Halmos, “How to Write Mathematics”, sec. 13, now online and originally at L'Enseignement Mathématique (2) 16 (1970), 123–152. | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 8:50 | comment | added | user44143 | @JoelDavidHamkins, I think you mean “the prohibition against first-personal singular pronouns is a ludicrous practice”… | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 23:10 | comment | added | Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda | @mathworker21 That better be the plural “you”! | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 19:25 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 15, 2022 at 3:06 | |||||
| Nov 2, 2022 at 19:14 | comment | added | mathworker21 | We think you should ask instead on academia stack exchange. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 18:57 | comment | added | mme | Halmos: "There is nothing wrong with the editorial “we”, but if you like it, do not misuse it. Let “we” mean “the author and the reader” (or “the lecturer and the audience”). Thus, it is fine to say “Using Lemma 2 we can generalize Theorem 1”, or “Lemma 3 gives us a technique for proving Theorem 4”. It is not good to say “Our work on this result was done in 1969” (unless the voice is that of two authors, or more, speaking in unison), and “We thank our wife for her help with the typing” is always bad." | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 18:57 | comment | added | Joel David Hamkins | There is no rule to use only "we" in mathematics writing. The prohibition against first-person pronoun is a ludicrous practice that has somehow got stuck in certain circles of mathematics, a leftover piece of bad advice from someone's 7th grade English teacher. Please write naturally and clearly, using "I" and "me" and "myself" when indeed you intend to refer to yourself. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 18:52 | comment | added | Andy Putman | I tend to use I in the acknowledgements, but really there is no "right" answer and either choice is fine. This is not something I would stress out about if I were you. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 18:48 | history | asked | Sera Gunn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |