The danger of 'you'
The following is advice I give to my students when writing papers. It seems that, particularly when they start writing argument papers, they have trouble with the word 'you.' My hope is that this will make the problem easier for them to see.
Slippery word
Some instructors will tell you not to use the personal pronoun in your writing. I would agree with that, but I'm just one person. I'm not your instructor. Instead, I wanted to talk to you about why we like to tell you not to use the personal pronoun. We want you not to say I, we, or us because doing so encourages you to use the word 'you.' And we hate that.
Why? Well, so far in this essay, I've used every personal pronoun I could, and I've used you. But when I've used it, I've always meant you, as in the audience of the paper. My hope is that this meaning is very clear to you. The trouble comes when I start using the word to refer to other people.
The word 'you' is a slippery word. It's slippery because sometimes it is referring to the audience of the paper. Sometimes, though, it refers to another group. Sometimes it refers to taxpayers, sometimes to criminals, sometimes to lawmakers. But no matter how many different groups it refers to, it's always the same word. So it's one word with potentially a whole lot of meanings. That makes it slippery.
The problem with using slippery words (They, their, and them are another set) is that your reader won't know who you're talking about. If they don't know who you're talking about, then they won't be able to follow your paper. They will get confused, and your meaning will be lost.
That's not to say you can't use the word at all. you can use it. Just make sure that you are only using it one way. How do you do this? Easy. Go back through your paper and look at every time you used the word 'you' or its derivations. Sometimes the best way to do this is with the 'find' command in Word.
Every time you use the word 'you,' write down on a separate piece of paper who 'you' is. When you're done, if you have more than one answer on your separate piece of paper, then you need to pick the most effective or most important one, and then go back through your paper and change all the others. If you use the word to refer to taxpayers, just replace it. So change "You need to consider how much money you'll be spending..." to "Taxpayers need to consider how much money they'll be spending..." or "You need to consider how much money the taxpayers will be spending..." depending on the circumstances.
If you do that, then you can make sure that the paper makes sense and is as clear as possible. I'm not saying you can't use the word at all. Just that you need to be careful about it.
Your instructor may tell you not to use the personal pronoun at all. But if you are allowed, I recommend that you be careful of slippery words.
You know what I mean?
Last Modified Wednesday, 28-May-2008 08:32:08 PDT
