[PW] ? You in academic writing

[Peter Zilahy Ingerman, PhD]

FWIW, I have an acquaintance whose doctoral dissertation was a story 
(novel?) written entirely in the second person. If this is of interest, 
I would be willing to track it down.

Peter Ingerman

John P. Dyson wrote:

>Quoting "Winters, Murl" <WintersM at evangel.edu>:
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>>A patron working on her doctoral dissertation asked, "What is the
>>rationale for not using "you" in academic writing?" She wants an
>>authoritative source which tells its first use and information on how it
>>came to be a rule - which is widely passed on to academic authors.
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>If one goes to one's lovely old stand-by, the _Oxford English 
>Dictionary_, s. v., 'one' (as pronoun), one discovers that the 
>avoidance of personal pronouns was not academic in origin at all. It 
>seems rather to be a modern holdover of a more conservative style of 
>writing, not so much _for_ a reader but rather _upon_ a subject. As 
>usual, the OED supplies a history through quotes for the use of 'one.'
>
>Academia and the professions are sufficiently tradition-bound and slow 
>to change in matters of style to have retained such usage despite 
>today's informal writing. I doubt if anyone will come up with a date 
>and source for the first time that "One doesn't use 'you,'" appeared in 
>the margins of a thesis draft or as a prescription on the printed page.
>
>John Dyson
>Spanish and Portuguese
>Indiana University
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