First Person vs. Third Person: When to Use Each in Writing

The Three Points of View

First Person: I, We, Me, My, Our

First-person writing uses the pronouns I, me, my, mine, myself, we, us, our, ours. The writer or narrator is directly present in the text as a participant or speaker.

• I conducted three interviews with project managers in the healthcare sector.
• We argue that the current framework misrepresents the data.
• My experience in content strategy shapes the approach outlined here.

First person places the writer's perspective at the center. It creates intimacy and directness, and it signals that the writer is accountable for the claims being made.

Second Person: You, Your

Second-person writing addresses the reader directly using you, your, yours, yourself. It creates immediacy and is common in instructional, persuasive, and conversational contexts.

• You can submit the form online or by mail.
• Before you draft, outline the three main points you want to make.
• Your audience shapes every decision in the writing process.

Second person is rarely used in academic writing. It appears frequently in how-to guides, self-help content, user manuals, and direct-address marketing copy.

Third Person: He, She, They, It, One

Third-person writing refers to subjects using pronouns like he, she, they, him, her, his, hers, their, it, one — or by name. The writer and reader are not grammatically present; the focus is on subjects external to the writing act itself.

• The researcher collected data from three sites over six months.
• Companies that invest in onboarding see higher retention rates.
• She presented the findings to the board in April.

Third person is standard in academic writing, scientific reporting, journalism, and most formal professional documents. It creates an impression of objectivity and distance.

First Person in Academic Writing

There is a persistent belief that first-person should never appear in academic writing. This was widely taught but is no longer the universal standard. Many academic style guides and journals now accept or actively encourage first-person when the writer is describing their own methodology, interpretation, or argument.

The key distinction is what first-person is doing in the sentence:

• Appropriate: I argue that the results indicate a correlation between the variables. (owning the interpretation)
• Appropriate: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 participants. (describing the researcher's actions)
• Generally avoided: I think this topic is fascinating because I have always been interested in linguistics. (personal reflection with no analytical value)

When in doubt, check the style guide or submission requirements for your specific discipline or publication. APA style, for instance, has encouraged appropriate first-person use since the 6th edition.

Third-Person Variants

Third person comes in two forms that serve different purposes:

Third-Person Limited

The narrator has access to the thoughts and feelings of one character or subject only. In non-fiction, this is how most writing works — you know what your sources tell you, what your data shows, what your subject reports; you do not have access to private mental states you did not observe or document.

Third-Person Omniscient

An omniscient narrator has access to the inner life of multiple characters and can describe events from multiple perspectives simultaneously. This is mainly a creative writing concept but has an analogue in analytical writing: the writer who synthesizes sources and presents multiple perspectives without privileging any single one.

When to Use Each Point of View

Shifting Point of View

One of the most common errors in student writing is unintentional point-of-view shifts: beginning in third person and suddenly switching to second or first without a deliberate reason.

Inconsistent example:

• The researcher collected the data and analyzed it carefully. You then need to look for patterns across the data set. I found this approach effective in my own work.

This mixes all three perspectives in three sentences without reason. The fix is to choose one perspective for the piece and maintain it throughout. If you need to describe both the researcher's actions and address the reader, structure the piece so each perspective has its own section or clearly signals the shift.

Intentional shifts are different: a personal essay might narrate in first person but shift to second in one passage to create the effect of addressing the reader directly. These work when they are deliberate and the reader can feel the intent.

The "One" Construction

Some formal writing uses one as a third-person singular pronoun: One must consider the implications carefully. This construction is formal, occasionally useful in academic or legal writing, and can sound stilted in anything more conversational. In most contemporary writing, it is better to be more specific about who is doing the considering.

First Person vs. Third Person in Professional Writing

In business writing, first-person plural (we) is common in company communications, proposals, and reports where the voice represents the organization. Individual professional documents like performance reviews, memos to a team, or project updates often use first person comfortably.

The principle in professional contexts: use the perspective that matches your relationship to the reader. If you are the author writing to a client, first person is natural. If you are producing an organizational document that represents the whole company, third-person references to the company or first-person plural both work.

For guidance on register more broadly, see the guide on formal vs. informal writing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I mix first and third person in the same document?

Yes, in some contexts. A research paper might use third person for literature review and analysis, then first person when describing the researcher's own methodology or argument. What matters is that the shift is deliberate and clear. Unintentional mixing is a style error; intentional, structured mixing can be effective.

Is "I" ever inappropriate in a cover letter?

First person is standard in cover letters — you are writing about yourself and your qualifications. The common advice is not to avoid "I" entirely, but to vary sentence structure so that "I" does not start every sentence. Beginning sentences with "My experience," "Having worked," or "At my previous role" creates variety without abandoning the first person voice appropriate to the format.

Why do some writing guides say to avoid "I" in essays?

The advice often comes from instructors trying to push students away from phrases like I think or I believe that hedge claims rather than assert them. I think the evidence supports X is weaker than The evidence supports X. The underlying concern is about hedging, not first person itself. Used to make direct, accountable claims, first person is not a problem.

What about singular "they" in third-person writing?

Singular they/their/them is now standard in contemporary English as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. All major style guides — AP, Chicago, APA — accept it. Each participant reported their experience. This avoids the awkward his or her while remaining grammatically correct. For more on this, see the guide on their, there, and they're.