[PW] ? You in academic writing

[John P. Dyson]

Quoting "Winters, Murl" <WintersM at evangel.edu>:

> 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.


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