Briana Khais

With my personal experience writing in first person, I use to use “I” in my writing pieces all
of the time when I first began writing essays in grade school. As I grew and expanded my
writing however, I started to steer away from writing in first person as it seemed too informal.
Similarly, to Maddalena, when using “I”, in papers I attempt to phrase my sentences in the most
proper way so that even though I am speaking in first person, my language still has a level of
maturity to it. Also, when giving my opinion on a subject or certain issue, I will always write in
first person to clearly state that it is my own personal stance on a topic, the same way as
Maddalena. My specific discipline is health sciences, and when writing out lab reports I am
tempted to write in the first person a lot because of how naturally it comes, but during lab I am
prohibited from using “I” in my reports. Maddalena refers to this in her essay as she talks about
scientific writing. Maddalena questions a technique used in writing lab reports as she describes
the technique of writing in passive voice to focus more on what is being observed and not the
person who is observing. She then writes that this method has been in question, as writing
scientific reports in first person gives more of a “whole picture” to the reader. In comparison, I
do write my lab reports in passive voice to make sure the reader’s focus stays directly on the
object of the observations. In specifics to genres in the health sciences discipline, first person is
used in research studies, when different health care providers, like doctors, are documenting their
personal observations of patients. In the specific section of patients’ files, first person is also
used in when doctors are documenting what medication they personally distributed to their
patients for others who are reading those files to know who exactly is responsible for giving the
specific patient their medication.