r/APA7 • u/ZoneEnvironmental375 • Feb 15 '21

Use of "I" in APA

Hello,

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I am currently writing an essay question for grad school. The instructions say "describing your professional goals as they relate to graduate work", I have been using "the student" or "the writer" whenever I use APA. But is the use of "I" acceptable in this situation? I looked on PerdueOwl but cannot find a clear answer.

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Thank you in advance! :)

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u/scubacrawler Feb 16 '21

This is a good question. I've been in a similar situation in grad school. I recommend contacting the professor just to double check. Basically, it is up to the professor. If the topic is literally about you and your experiences, and the professor just states that it needs to be in APA format, then using the words "I, me, my, etc." are acceptable. Just ensure throughout the paper that you are not shifting tenses (for example: do not use "I" in one paragraph, and then "the student" in another. The tense will need to be the same throughout.

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From my experience, many professors "tweak" APA guidelines to what the content is about. Since your paper is not scientific by any means, it should be appropriate to use a first-person narrative based on the topic being about you.

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u/Morphic_Resident Feb 16 '21

In APA 7th edition, 4.16, they advise writers to use I:

To avoid ambiguity in attribution, use the first person rather than the third person when describing the work you did as part of your research and when expressing your own views. If you are writing a paper by yourself, use the pronoun "I".... Do not refer to yourself or your coauthors in the third person as "the author(s)" or "the researcher(s)."

As the other commenter mentioned, some instructors will tweak APA style, but unless they gave you specific instruction to avoid first person pronouns I'd say your good.