Articles

Who hasn’t read an article and walked away feeling that something just wasn’t right about it? I know I have. While reading it you find yourself constantly scratching your head, rereading sentences to make sure you understood it correctly. Sometimes the writing begins to aggravate you, and you feel anger towards this faceless author whom you’ve never met. You see various occurrences of “I” positioned interchangeable in front of “think”, “feel”, and “believe”. Then you realize what you’re reading isn’t the product of researched material but of biased opinion. Calm down FOX News, I’m not pointing any fingers.

Not “I”

It would be wrong to simply dismiss any sentence that begins with “I”, but that is what many readers do when confronted with them. Of course an entire article or paper is generally based on just that: what you think. But must we constantly remind the reader that it is you that is doing the thinking? Only in the strictest of editorials. To do so is to put yourself on airs. A reader likes to feel as if she is only vaguely influenced by what is written, almost divinely inspired by the text to arrive at her current thought. That is why many people read pieces of interest, then quickly begin regurgitating the information to their friends and family. It makes the reader feel intelligent and worldly, almost like they came up with it, and even more importantly, not coerced into feeling this way.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for “I”, but those places are generally reserved for references of your own experiences that help support your argument.

Opinion doesn’t just start with a letter

It can also come from an undertone. If you begin to sense that the author has a grudge out for the subject or perhaps sounds a little too excited (any use of an exclamation point other than in quoted dialogue raises an alarm), you may have experienced this frequently used fallacy. To offer up an opinion in small doses is one thing, but to bombard the reader with your feelings on a subject is just plain old bullying. It’s almost like trying a Jedi mind-trick without the Force. People just become pissed off because you’re waving your hand at them and telling them what to do. Friends of bullies are few and far between, and the victims of these bullies know better than to believe a word of what they say because they’re the same hooligans taking their lunch money. Friends on the other hand; they genuinely want to believe what you say.

When you write just keep it relaxed and casual. You wouldn’t tell your new girlfriend’s dad that you believe in premarital sex, would you? Why not? Because he’s a stranger, as are most of your readers, and to do so is to alienate yourself and your dogmatic ideals. Maybe one day when you have a huge cult-following like Oprah or Justin Beiber you can say and write whatever you want without risk of losing your audience, but for now don’t bloviate; you don’t have that luxury. You’re forced to do what the rest of us do: Hide your bias as best you can. Write a paper that helps someone make up their mind on an issue, one that force-feeds myopic opinions if you please, yet only under the shroud of honest-to-god, you-make-a-hell-of-a-point fact.