You! Yes, you. You often find yourself stuck while writing articles. You switch from 'you' to 'I' to 'we' to 'us' and end up getting your points distorted because you don't know how to address the readers. You know your target audience, that's right, but how do you get them a 3D view of your article and make them read it as if it's their inner man talking to them? That's where the Personal Pronoun comes in.
The Personal Pronoun Error
In writing articles generally, many writers misuse the personal pronoun in their content. They tend to substitute right for wrong, thereby confusing the readers mistakenly.
Writing According To Your Audience
The personal pronoun used in content writing varies with the type of content and the audience being addressed. In technical writing, either the first-person personal pronoun or the second-person personal pronoun, you, is used. It is essential to know the most suitable personal pronoun for your article and get accustomed to using it to avoid confusing your readers.
When writing about your personal experience or opinion, the singular first-person pronoun 'I' is used, otherwise, 'You' is the most straightforward of all personal pronouns, and it remains the same in both subjective and objective use cases unless it is used in the possessive and reflexive form, which it changes to 'Your' and 'Yourself.'
'You' Or 'I': Which is Apt For Technical Writing?
In technical writing, you aim to either narrate the experience of a recent project or teach the audience how to execute a task. You educate them by speaking to them directly through written words. In talking about your experience, you use 'I' because it helps the readers learn from your point of view. Using 'you' creates a form of intimacy between your audience and you through your article, getting your readers to take action.
Besides the familiarity 'you' makes, it eliminates improper addressing of a particular group of people in your readers — people in the LGBTQ community. Continuous addressing of someone with the sex of 'he' and gender identity of 'she' might disrespect the reader inadvertently and make the reader lose interest in your subsequent articles.
Getting Better And Doing More
It is not uncommon to make mistakes, but with constant practise through frequently writing, proofreading, and editing your works and those of other writers, the errors become irritable, and you tend to avoid them at all costs. You can make a change starting from this moment. Get all your past works and works-in-progress and spot and correct the mistakes.
Conclusion
In this article, I examined one of the most common errors in article writing generally and rectified the mistake of using the appropriate personal pronoun in technical writing.
Making amendments in line with this article will help you become a better technical writer and make your works less error-prone.
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