Essays and Point of View

Watch the online presentation to visualize POV

Points of View

    1st Person POV is indicated by the pronouns: I, me, we, us, my, mine, our, ours, myself, ourselves.

    The 1st Person POV is natural to use. The author may freely relate ideas from his own perspective. This works best in personal narratives as the perspective is relevant.

    But for an essay, which is trying to present some kind of argument or analysis, the opinions are automatically tainted as only personal and not relevant. Only authors with authority (having an advanced degree in the subject) can use 1^st person in an argumentative essay.

    2nd Person POV is recognized by the 2nd Person pronouns: you, your, yourself.

    The 2nd person is used with the other POVs. It cannot be used exclusively on its own. Second Person is used by teachers or those who give commands or instruct.

    Second Person is directed towards the reader. It relies on telling the reader what to think and tries to relate experiences based on the idea of a shared, common experience: "You know how you feel when you don't want to get up in the morning?" But people have different experiences, so this doesn’t work. People can also feel resentful at constantly being told what to think and do. Do not use second person in any kind of essay.

    3rd Person POV is recognized by the 3rd Person pronouns: he/she/it, him, her, they, theirs, his/hers/its, them, himself, herself, itself, themselves.

    3rd Person is a distant POV. It is used in a general way. It’s not personal like 1^st. It doesn’t address and alienate like 2^nd. 3rd Person is powerful because of its objectivity.

     In third person, the material is what's most important. In essays, the ideas and evidence are what persuade readers. Ideas stand on their own, seemingly like facts. So instead of "I believe red meat should be banned . . ." the author writes "Red meat should be banned because. . ."

    Anecdotes are used without the constant interruption of the author's presence. Third person allows readers to bring themselves to the essay while ideas and facts are related objectively.

    Using 3rd Person is difficult at first. Removing 1st and 2nd doesn't always work. Also, authors can sound pompous by saying"one can see” or “the author will.” Avoid such phrases. Move on to the idea.

    The best advice is simply to be aware of the pronouns. Train yourself to recognize when you use certain pronouns, and to know that you need to replace them. Also, your word processor's find (or search) feature can be quite useful in eliminating the 1st and 2nd Person.