can i use we in a research paper

Is It Okay to Use "We" In a Research Paper? Here's What You Need to Know

Explore the use of "we" in research papers: guidelines, alternatives, and considerations for effective academic writing. Learn when and how to use it appropriately.

Jun 25, 2024

When embarking on the journey of academic writing, particularly in research papers, one of the first questions that often arises is about pronoun usage. Specifically, many writers grapple with the question: Is it okay to use "we" in a research paper?

This seemingly simple grammatical choice carries significant weight in academic circles. Using pronouns, especially first-person pronouns like "we," can influence the tone, clarity, and perceived objectivity of your work. It's a topic that has sparked debates among scholars, with opinions evolving and varying across different disciplines.

The importance of pronoun usage in academic writing cannot be overstated, especially in contexts like thesis and scientific writing. It affects how your research is perceived, how you position yourself as an author, and how you engage with your readers using the first person or third person. The choice between using "we," maintaining a more impersonal tone, or opting for alternatives can impact the overall effectiveness of your communication.

In this blog post, we'll explore the nuances of using "we" in research papers, examining both traditional and modern perspectives. We'll delve into the pros and cons, provide guidelines for appropriate usage, and offer alternatives to help you confidently navigate writing academic papers.

Traditional Stance on Using "We" in Research Papers

 historical preference for third-person perspective.

Academic writing traditionally favored a third-person perspective, especially in scientific fields. This preference emerged in the late 19th century as part of a push for objectivity in scientific communication. The goal was to present research as unbiased facts and observations.

Key aspects:

• Emphasis on passive voice versus active voice when choosing to use the first person or third person in writing a research paper.
• The use of impersonal constructions and passive voice can help avoid personal pronouns.
• Third-person references to authors

Reasons for avoiding first-person pronouns

Arguments against using "we" in research papers:

• Perceived lack of objectivity
• Ambiguity in meaning
• Concerns about formality
• Shift of focus from research to researchers
• Adherence to established conventions
• Avoid presumption in single-authored papers when you decide to use first-person pronouns or not. when you decide to use first-person pronouns or not.

This approach shaped academic writing for decades and still influences some disciplines, especially in the context of writing a research paper. However, attitudes toward pronoun usage have begun to change in recent years.

Changing Perspectives in Academic Writing

Shift towards more personal and engaging academic prose.

Recent years have seen a move towards more accessible academic writing. This shift aims to:

• Increase readability
• Engage readers more effectively by incorporating second-person narrative techniques.
• Acknowledge the researcher's role in the work
• Promote transparency in research processes

Key changes:

• More direct language
• Increased use of active voice can make your academic papers more engaging.
• Greater acceptance of narrative elements

Acceptance of first-person pronouns in some disciplines

Some fields now allow or encourage the use of "we" and other first-person pronouns. This varies by:

• Discipline: More common in humanities and social sciences
• Journal: Some publications explicitly permit or prefer first-person usage
• Type of paper: Often more accepted in qualitative research or opinion pieces

Reasons for acceptance:

• Clarity in describing methods and decisions
• Ownership of ideas and findings is crucial when writing a research paper.
• Improved reader engagement in scientific writing
• Recognition of researcher subjectivity in some fields

However, acceptance is not universal. Many disciplines and publications still prefer traditional, impersonal styles.

When It's Appropriate to Use "We" in Research Papers

Collaborative research with multiple authors

• Natural fit for papers with multiple contributors
• Accurately reflects joint effort and shared responsibility
• Examples: "We conducted experiments..." or "We conclude that..."

Describing methodology or procedures

• Clarifies who performed specific actions, helping to avoid personal pronouns that might otherwise confuse the audience.
• Adds transparency to the research process, particularly when first-person pronouns are used effectively.
• Example: "We collected data using..."

Presenting arguments or hypotheses

• Demonstrates ownership of ideas
• Can make complex concepts more accessible in a research report.
• Example: "We argue that..." or "We hypothesize..."

Discipline-specific conventions

• Usage varies widely between fields
• More common in Social sciences, Humanities, and Some STEM fields (e.g., computer science)
• Less common in Hard sciences, Medical research
• Always check journal guidelines and field norms, particularly regarding the use of the first person or third person.

Key point: Use "we" judiciously, balancing clarity and convention.

When to Avoid Using "We" in Research Papers

Single-authored papers

• Can seem odd or presumptuous
• Alternatives: Use "I" if appropriate, Use passive voice, and Refer to yourself as " the researcher " or "the author"

Presenting factual information or literature reviews

• Facts stand independently of the author
• Keep the focus on the information, not the presenter, when writing a research paper.
• Examples: "Previous studies have shown..." instead of "We know from previous studies..."  "The data indicate..." instead of "We see in the data..."

When trying to maintain an objective tone

• Some topics in research reports require a more detached approach.
• Avoid "we" when: Reporting widely accepted facts, Describing established theories, Presenting controversial findings
• Use impersonal constructions:  "It was observed that...", "The results suggest..."

Remember: Always prioritize clarity and adhere to your field's conventions.

Alternatives to Using "We"

Passive voice.

• Shifts focus to the action or result
• Examples: "The experiment was conducted..." (instead of "We experimented...")  "It was observed that..." (instead of "We observed that...")
• Use personal pronouns sparingly to avoid overly complex sentences.

Third-person perspective

• Refers to the research or study itself
• Examples: "This study examines..." (instead of "We examine...") "The results indicate..." (instead of "We found...")
• Can create a more objective tone

 Using "the researcher(s)" or "the author(s)"

• Useful for single- authored papers
• Maintains formality while acknowledging human involvement
• Examples: "The researchers collected data..." (instead of "We collected data...")  "The author argues..." (instead of "We argue...")
• Can become repetitive if overused in writing research papers.

Tips for using alternatives:

• Vary sentence structure to maintain reader interest
• Ensure clarity is not sacrificed for formality
• Choose the most appropriate alternative based on context
• Consider journal guidelines and field conventions when writing a research paper.

Remember: The goal is clear, effective communication of your research, whether you use first person or third person.

Tips for Effective Academic Writing

Consistency in pronoun usage.

• Choose a style and stick to it throughout
• Avoid mixing "we" with impersonal constructions
• Exceptions:  Different sections may require different approaches, Clearly mark any intentional shifts in perspective

Balancing formality with clarity and engagement

• Prioritize clear communication
• Use simple, direct language where possible when writing research papers, and try to use the term that best fits the context.
• Engage readers without sacrificing academic rigor
• Techniques:  Use active voice judiciously, Vary sentence structure, Incorporate relevant examples or analogies

Seeking feedback from peers or mentors

• Share drafts with colleagues in your field to improve your research report.
• Ask for specific feedback on writing style
• Consider perspectives from Senior researchers , Peers at similar career stages, Potential target audience members, and how they prefer the use of the first person or third person in research.
• Be open to constructive criticism

Additional tips:

• Read widely in your field to understand style norms when writing research papers.
• Practice different writing styles to find your voice
• Revise and edit multiple times
• Use style guides relevant to your discipline
• Consider the reader's perspective while writing

Remember: Effective academic writing communicates complex ideas while meeting field-specific expectations.

Recap of key points

• The use of "we" in research papers is evolving
• Appropriateness depends on Discipline, Journal guidelines, Research type, Personal preference
• Alternatives include passive voice and third-person perspective, while the increased use of passive voice can sometimes create ambiguity.
• Consider audience, field norms, and clarity when choosing a style
• Consistency and balance in the use of first person or third person are crucial.

Encouragement to make informed choices in academic writing

• Understand the context of your work
• Stay informed about current trends in your field
• Prioritize clear communication of your research
• Be confident in your choices, but remain flexible
• Remember: No universal rule fits all situations, Effective writing adapts to its purpose and audience
• Continually refine your writing skills, including the appropriate use of personal pronouns in APA format.

Final thoughts:

• Writing style impacts how your research is received
• Make deliberate choices to enhance your paper's impact by using appropriate personal pronouns.
• Balance tradition with evolving norms in academic writing
• Your unique voice can contribute to advancing your field, particularly in writing a research paper.

Ultimately, choose a style that best serves your research and readers while adhering to relevant guidelines of scientific writing and thesis format. It may also be acceptable to use first-person pronouns where appropriate.

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• Writing Tips

Can You Use I or We in a Research Paper?

4-minute read

• 11th July 2023

Writing in the first person, or using I and we pronouns, has traditionally been frowned upon in academic writing . But despite this long-standing norm, writing in the first person isn’t actually prohibited. In fact, it’s becoming more acceptable – even in research papers.

 If you’re wondering whether you can use I (or we ) in your research paper, you should check with your institution first and foremost. Many schools have rules regarding first-person use. If it’s up to you, though, we still recommend some guidelines. Check out our tips below!

When Is It Most Acceptable to Write in the First Person?

Certain sections of your paper are more conducive to writing in the first person. Typically, the first person makes sense in the abstract, introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections. You should still limit your use of I and we , though, or your essay may start to sound like a personal narrative .

 Using first-person pronouns is most useful and acceptable in the following circumstances.

When doing so removes the passive voice and adds flow

Sometimes, writers have to bend over backward just to avoid using the first person, often producing clunky sentences and a lot of passive voice constructions. The first person can remedy this. For example: 

Both sentences are fine, but the second one flows better and is easier to read.

When doing so differentiates between your research and other literature

When discussing literature from other researchers and authors, you might be comparing it with your own findings or hypotheses . Using the first person can help clarify that you are engaging in such a comparison. For example: 

 In the first sentence, using “the author” to avoid the first person creates ambiguity. The second sentence prevents misinterpretation.

When doing so allows you to express your interest in the subject

In some instances, you may need to provide background for why you’re researching your topic. This information may include your personal interest in or experience with the subject, both of which are easier to express using first-person pronouns. For example:

Expressing personal experiences and viewpoints isn’t always a good idea in research papers. When it’s appropriate to do so, though, just make sure you don’t overuse the first person.

When to Avoid Writing in the First Person

It’s usually a good idea to stick to the third person in the methods and results sections of your research paper. Additionally, be careful not to use the first person when:

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●  It makes your findings seem like personal observations rather than factual results.

●  It removes objectivity and implies that the writing may be biased .

●  It appears in phrases such as I think or I believe , which can weaken your writing.

Keeping Your Writing Formal and Objective

Using the first person while maintaining a formal tone can be tricky, but keeping a few tips in mind can help you strike a balance. The important thing is to make sure the tone isn’t too conversational.

 To achieve this, avoid referring to the readers, such as with the second-person you . Use we and us only when referring to yourself and the other authors/researchers involved in the paper, not the audience.

It’s becoming more acceptable in the academic world to use first-person pronouns such as we and I in research papers. But make sure you check with your instructor or institution first because they may have strict rules regarding this practice.

 If you do decide to use the first person, make sure you do so effectively by following the tips we’ve laid out in this guide. And once you’ve written a draft, send us a copy! Our expert proofreaders and editors will be happy to check your grammar, spelling, word choice, references, tone, and more. Submit a 500-word sample today!

Is it ever acceptable to use I or we in a research paper?

In some instances, using first-person pronouns can help you to establish credibility, add clarity, and make the writing easier to read.

How can I avoid using I in my writing?

Writing in the passive voice can help you to avoid using the first person.

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Can You Use First-Person Pronouns (I/we) in a Research Paper?

Research writers frequently wonder whether the first person can be used in academic and scientific writing. In truth, for generations, we’ve been discouraged from using “I” and “we” in academic writing simply due to old habits. That’s right—there’s no reason why you can’t use these words! In fact, the academic community used first-person pronouns until the 1920s, when the third person and passive-voice constructions (that is, “boring” writing) were adopted–prominently expressed, for example, in Strunk and White’s classic writing manual “Elements of Style” first published in 1918, that advised writers to place themselves “in the background” and not draw attention to themselves.

In recent decades, however, changing attitudes about the first person in academic writing has led to a paradigm shift, and we have, however, we’ve shifted back to producing active and engaging prose that incorporates the first person.

Can You Use “I” in a Research Paper?

However, “I” and “we” still have some generally accepted pronoun rules writers should follow. For example, the first person is more likely used in the abstract , Introduction section , Discussion section , and Conclusion section of an academic paper while the third person and passive constructions are found in the Methods section and Results section .

In this article, we discuss when you should avoid personal pronouns and when they may enhance your writing.

It’s Okay to Use First-Person Pronouns to:

• clarify meaning by eliminating passive voice constructions;
• establish authority and credibility (e.g., assert ethos, the Aristotelian rhetorical term referring to the personal character);
• express interest in a subject matter (typically found in rapid correspondence);
• establish personal connections with readers, particularly regarding anecdotal or hypothetical situations (common in philosophy, religion, and similar fields, particularly to explore how certain concepts might impact personal life. Additionally, artistic disciplines may also encourage personal perspectives more than other subjects);
• to emphasize or distinguish your perspective while discussing existing literature; and
• to create a conversational tone (rare in academic writing).

The First Person Should Be Avoided When:

• doing so would remove objectivity and give the impression that results or observations are unique to your perspective;
• you wish to maintain an objective tone that would suggest your study minimized biases as best as possible; and
• expressing your thoughts generally (phrases like “I think” are unnecessary because any statement that isn’t cited should be yours).

Usage Examples

The following examples compare the impact of using and avoiding first-person pronouns.

Example 1 (First Person Preferred):

To understand the effects of global warming on coastal regions,  changes in sea levels, storm surge occurrences and precipitation amounts  were examined .

[Note: When a long phrase acts as the subject of a passive-voice construction, the sentence becomes difficult to digest. Additionally, since the author(s) conducted the research, it would be clearer to specifically mention them when discussing the focus of a project.]

We examined  changes in sea levels, storm surge occurrences, and precipitation amounts to understand how global warming impacts coastal regions.

[Note: When describing the focus of a research project, authors often replace “we” with phrases such as “this study” or “this paper.” “We,” however, is acceptable in this context, including for scientific disciplines. In fact, papers published the vast majority of scientific journals these days use “we” to establish an active voice.   Be careful when using “this study” or “this paper” with verbs that clearly couldn’t have performed the action.   For example, “we attempt to demonstrate” works, but “the study attempts to demonstrate” does not; the study is not a person.]

Example 2 (First Person Discouraged):

From the various data points  we have received ,  we observed  that higher frequencies of runoffs from heavy rainfall have occurred in coastal regions where temperatures have increased by at least 0.9°C.

[Note: Introducing personal pronouns when discussing results raises questions regarding the reproducibility of a study. However, mathematics fields generally tolerate phrases such as “in X example, we see…”]

Coastal regions  with temperature increases averaging more than 0.9°C  experienced  higher frequencies of runoffs from heavy rainfall.

[Note: We removed the passive voice and maintained objectivity and assertiveness by specifically identifying the cause-and-effect elements as the actor and recipient of the main action verb. Additionally, in this version, the results appear independent of any person’s perspective.] 

Example 3 (First Person Preferred):

In contrast to the study by Jones et al. (2001), which suggests that milk consumption is safe for adults, the Miller study (2005) revealed the potential hazards of ingesting milk.  The authors confirm  this latter finding.

[Note: “Authors” in the last sentence above is unclear. Does the term refer to Jones et al., Miller, or the authors of the current paper?]

In contrast to the study by Jones et al. (2001), which suggests that milk consumption is safe for adults, the Miller study (2005) revealed the potential hazards of ingesting milk.  We confirm  this latter finding.

[Note: By using “we,” this sentence clarifies the actor and emphasizes the significance of the recent findings reported in this paper. Indeed, “I” and “we” are acceptable in most scientific fields to compare an author’s works with other researchers’ publications. The APA encourages using personal pronouns for this context. The social sciences broaden this scope to allow discussion of personal perspectives, irrespective of comparisons to other literature.]

Other Tips about Using Personal Pronouns

• Avoid starting a sentence with personal pronouns. The beginning of a sentence is a noticeable position that draws readers’ attention. Thus, using personal pronouns as the first one or two words of a sentence will draw unnecessary attention to them (unless, of course, that was your intent).
• Be careful how you define “we.” It should only refer to the authors and never the audience unless your intention is to write a conversational piece rather than a scholarly document! After all, the readers were not involved in analyzing or formulating the conclusions presented in your paper (although, we note that the point of your paper is to persuade readers to reach the same conclusions you did). While this is not a hard-and-fast rule, if you do want to use “we” to refer to a larger class of people, clearly define the term “we” in the sentence. For example, “As researchers, we frequently question…”
• First-person writing is becoming more acceptable under Modern English usage standards; however, the second-person pronoun “you” is still generally unacceptable because it is too casual for academic writing.
• Take all of the above notes with a grain of salt. That is,  double-check your institution or target journal’s author guidelines .  Some organizations may prohibit the use of personal pronouns.
• As an extra tip, before submission, you should always read through the most recent issues of a journal to get a better sense of the editors’ preferred writing styles and conventions.

Wordvice Resources

For more general advice on how to use active and passive voice in research papers, on how to paraphrase , or for a list of useful phrases for academic writing , head over to the Wordvice Academic Resources pages . And for more professional proofreading services , visit our Academic Editing and P aper Editing Services pages.

First-Person Pronouns

Use first-person pronouns in APA Style to describe your work as well as your personal reactions.

• If you are writing a paper by yourself, use the pronoun “I” to refer to yourself.
• If you are writing a paper with coauthors, use the pronoun “we” to refer yourself and your coauthors together.

Referring to yourself in the third person

Do not use the third person to refer to yourself. Writers are often tempted to do this as a way to sound more formal or scholarly; however, it can create ambiguity for readers about whether you or someone else performed an action.

Correct: I explored treatments for social anxiety.

Incorrect: The author explored treatments for social anxiety.

First-person pronouns are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 4.16 and the Concise Guide Section 2.16

Editorial “we”

Also avoid the editorial “we” to refer to people in general.

Incorrect: We often worry about what other people think of us.

Instead, specify the meaning of “we”—do you mean other people in general, other people of your age, other students, other psychologists, other nurses, or some other group? The previous sentence can be clarified as follows:

Correct: As young adults, we often worry about what other people think of us. I explored my own experience of social anxiety...

When you use the first person to describe your own actions, readers clearly understand when you are writing about your own work and reactions versus those of other researchers.

We Vs. They: Using the First & Third Person in Research Papers

Writing in the first , second , or third person is referred to as the author’s point of view . When we write, our tendency is to personalize the text by writing in the first person . That is, we use pronouns such as “I” and “we”. This is acceptable when writing personal information, a journal, or a book. However, it is not common in academic writing.

Some writers find the use of first , second , or third person point of view a bit confusing while writing research papers. Since second person is avoided while writing in academic or scientific papers, the main confusion remains within first or third person.

In the following sections, we will discuss the usage and examples of the first , second , and third person point of view.

First Person Pronouns

The first person point of view simply means that we use the pronouns that refer to ourselves in the text. These are as follows:

Can we use I or We In the Scientific Paper?

Using these, we present the information based on what “we” found. In science and mathematics, this point of view is rarely used. It is often considered to be somewhat self-serving and arrogant . It is important to remember that when writing your research results, the focus of the communication is the research and not the persons who conducted the research. When you want to persuade the reader, it is best to avoid personal pronouns in academic writing even when it is personal opinion from the authors of the study. In addition to sounding somewhat arrogant, the strength of your findings might be underestimated.

For example:

Based on my results, I concluded that A and B did not equal to C.

In this example, the entire meaning of the research could be misconstrued. The results discussed are not those of the author ; they are generated from the experiment. To refer to the results in this context is incorrect and should be avoided. To make it more appropriate, the above sentence can be revised as follows:

Based on the results of the assay, A and B did not equal to C.

Second Person Pronouns

The second person point of view uses pronouns that refer to the reader. These are as follows:

This point of view is usually used in the context of providing instructions or advice , such as in “how to” manuals or recipe books. The reason behind using the second person is to engage the reader.

You will want to buy a turkey that is large enough to feed your extended family. Before cooking it, you must wash it first thoroughly with cold water.

Although this is a good technique for giving instructions, it is not appropriate in academic or scientific writing.

Third Person Pronouns

The third person point of view uses both proper nouns, such as a person’s name, and pronouns that refer to individuals or groups (e.g., doctors, researchers) but not directly to the reader. The ones that refer to individuals are as follows:

• Hers (possessive form)
• His (possessive form)
• Its (possessive form)
• One’s (possessive form)

The third person point of view that refers to groups include the following:

• Their (possessive form)
• Theirs (plural possessive form)

Everyone at the convention was interested in what Dr. Johnson presented. The instructors decided that the students should help pay for lab supplies. The researchers determined that there was not enough sample material to conduct the assay.

The third person point of view is generally used in scientific papers but, at times, the format can be difficult. We use indefinite pronouns to refer back to the subject but must avoid using masculine or feminine terminology. For example:

A researcher must ensure that he has enough material for his experiment. The nurse must ensure that she has a large enough blood sample for her assay.

Many authors attempt to resolve this issue by using “he or she” or “him or her,” but this gets cumbersome and too many of these can distract the reader. For example:

A researcher must ensure that he or she has enough material for his or her experiment. The nurse must ensure that he or she has a large enough blood sample for his or her assay.

These issues can easily be resolved by making the subjects plural as follows:

Researchers must ensure that they have enough material for their experiment. Nurses must ensure that they have large enough blood samples for their assay.

Exceptions to the Rules

As mentioned earlier, the third person is generally used in scientific writing, but the rules are not quite as stringent anymore. It is now acceptable to use both the first and third person pronouns  in some contexts, but this is still under controversy.  

In a February 2011 blog on Eloquent Science , Professor David M. Schultz presented several opinions on whether the author viewpoints differed. However, there appeared to be no consensus. Some believed that the old rules should stand to avoid subjectivity, while others believed that if the facts were valid, it didn’t matter which point of view was used.

First or Third Person: What Do The Journals Say

In general, it is acceptable in to use the first person point of view in abstracts, introductions, discussions, and conclusions, in some journals. Even then, avoid using “I” in these sections. Instead, use “we” to refer to the group of researchers that were part of the study. The third person point of view is used for writing methods and results sections. Consistency is the key and switching from one point of view to another within sections of a manuscript can be distracting and is discouraged. It is best to always check your author guidelines for that particular journal. Once that is done, make sure your manuscript is free from the above-mentioned or any other grammatical error.

You are the only researcher involved in your thesis project. You want to avoid using the first person point of view throughout, but there are no other researchers on the project so the pronoun “we” would not be appropriate. What do you do and why? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

I am writing the history of an engineering company for which I worked. How do I relate a significant incident that involved me?

Hi Roger, Thank you for your question. If you are narrating the history for the company that you worked at, you would have to refer to it from an employee’s perspective (third person). If you are writing the history as an account of your experiences with the company (including the significant incident), you could refer to yourself as ”I” or ”My.” (first person) You could go through other articles related to language and grammar on Enago Academy’s website https://enago.com/academy/ to help you with your document drafting. Did you get a chance to install our free Mobile App? https://www.enago.com/academy/mobile-app/ . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .

Good day , i am writing a research paper and m y setting is a company . is it ethical to put the name of the company in the research paper . i the management has allowed me to conduct my research in thir company .

thanks docarlene diaz

Generally authors do not mention the names of the organization separately within the research paper. The name of the educational institution the researcher or the PhD student is working in needs to be mentioned along with the name in the list of authors. However, if the research has been carried out in a company, it might not be mandatory to mention the name after the name in the list of authors. You can check with the author guidelines of your target journal and if needed confirm with the editor of the journal. Also check with the mangement of the company whether they want the name of the company to be mentioned in the research paper.

Finishing up my dissertation the information is clear and concise.

How to write the right first person pronoun if there is a single researcher? Thanks

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Use of "I", "we" and the passive voice in a scientific thesis [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Style Question: Use of “we” vs. “I” vs. passive voice in a dissertation

When the first person voice is used in scientific writing it is mostly used in the first person plural, as scientific papers almost always have more than one co-author, such as

We propose a new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes.

Often the "we" also includes the reader

We may see in Figure 4.2 that...

However, I am writing a thesis which means I am the only author and I even have to testify in writing that the work is my own and I did not receive any help other than from the indicated sources. Therefore it seems I should use "I", but this seems to be very unusual in scientific writing and even discouraged as one may sound pretentious or self-absorbed. However, the alternative is to use the passive voice, which seems to be even more discouraged as it produces hard to read writing and indeed an entire thesis in the passive voice may be indigestible for any reader.

So far, I used the second form of "we" extensively that includes me and the reader. This form is often natural when describing mathematical derivations as the truth is objective and it suggests that I am taking the reader by the hand and walking her through the process. Still, I'm trying not do overdo this form.

However, eventually I will need to refer to methods that I propose and choices that I have made. Should I just follow scientific convention and use "we" although it is factually inaccurate or indeed write in the scorned-upon "I"?

• writing-style
• mathematics
• passive-voice
• personal-pronouns

• 3 In your particular case, an inclusive we could be used to recognize the nematodes collaboration :) –  Dr. belisarius Commented May 10, 2011 at 13:01
• 3 I find the use of "we" odd if there is only one author. I read a paper by a single author recently and he consistently wrote things like "we propose...", "we then present..." and I kept thinking, wait, who did you work with? –  Flash Commented May 10, 2011 at 14:08
• 2 @Andrew: Seriously? You read academic papers, and you're not at least aware of the convention? You might not endorse it, but you could just accept it as something some people do. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:05
• 1 @oceanhug: Probably saying nothing you don't already know, but bear in mind this sort of question could become a bit of a 'poll'. And there will be plenty of people who actively dislike using the effectively 'singular we' in any context. Because of associations with the 'academic old guard', the 'regal we', whatever. Or in solidarity with the march towards 'individualism' that marks Western civilisation. You, on the other hand, have a thesis to write. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:58
• I have seen academic papers by a single author using I . However I agree with FumbleFingers that most of the time you would use we , and that I sounds strange in an academic paper. Personally, if I were to read your thesis and saw we , I wouldn't find it as an implication that you were not the only author of the work. Also, I assume you will have a thesis supervisor, who is also responsible to check (and possibly approve) your work, so you can include him/her in the we . –  nico Commented May 11, 2011 at 6:47

6 Answers 6

I tried to use "I" in the first version of my thesis (in mathematics). When my advisor suggested corrections, the most detailed and strongly-worded of them was to use "we"; later, I asked another young professor whether one could use "I" and she said "Only if you want to sound like an arrogant bastard", and observed that only old people with established reputations can get away with it.

My extremely informal recollection of some articles that are more than, say, forty years old is that the singular is used more often, so what she says may be true but for a different reason than simple pride. The modern culture may disparage apparent displays of ego simply because of the greater prevalence of collaboration, whether or not your paper is a product of it. This is complete speculation, though.

I disagreed with the change at the time but acquiesced anyway, and now, with distance, I realize that it was a good idea. Scattering the paper with "I" draws attention to the author, and especially in mathematical writing, the prose is filled with impersonal subjects (that is, you often don't mean "I" literally, as in "If y = f(x), then we have an equation..."). Using "we" allows it to simply sink into the background, where it belongs. If it's your thesis, you don't have to put any special effort into reminding the reader who is talking, just like in an essay, they used to tell me not to say "in my opinion" before stating it.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot entirely about "the author". I hate that phrase, because it is just as inconsistent with "we" as with "I" and disingenuous to boot. If you have to make a truly personal remark, just say "I", and perhaps set off the entire comment by "Personally..." or something like that.

• 3 Excellent answer. I totally agree on all points, which you express well. Egalitarianism, individualism, or whatever may push for the first person singular, but it's distracting in serious academic texts. Though I don't have a big problem with ' the author ' once (maybe twice). –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:14
• 7 We think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your speculation. –  Konrad Rudolph Commented May 11, 2011 at 14:23
• 1 -1; I strongly disagree. Moreover, the APA (and perhaps other) style manuals disagree. The persistence of using the passive voice to minimize the use of first person pronouns is a historical affectation that most of us have been trained from a young age to slavishly employ. However, it tends to yield awkward prose that is hard to read. If the greatest crime that must be committed is either "egotism" or "lack of clarity", I certainly choose to be egotistic. –  russellpierce Commented Oct 23, 2012 at 16:06
• 6 @RyanReich: You know that a down-vote is not a personal criticism right? –  russellpierce Commented Dec 24, 2012 at 14:45
• 2 @russellpierce. There are enough people around saying "never use passive voice" that they need to be argued against. The passive voice should be used whenever it improves your prose, and this happens moderately often. If you look at some early scientific papers, the incessant use of the first person pronoun can be really distracting, and many of these uses can be avoided using the passive voice. –  Peter Shor Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 16:00

I don't think there's anything wrong with using we in single-author scientific journal papers. It's the tradition, and if you use I in scientific papers it stands out, not necessarily in a good way. On the other hand, a PhD thesis is not a scientific journal paper, but a PhD thesis, and if you want to use I in it I don't see anything wrong with that.

The passive voice should not be used to avoid writing I or we . If the entire thesis is written in the passive voice, it is much harder to read, and the sentences within it 1 have to be reworded awkwardly so that some good transitions between the sentences within a paragraph are lost. On the other hand, if some sentences seem to require the passive voice, by all means those sentences should be written in the passive voice. But the passive voice should only be used where it is justified, that is, where its use improves readability of the thesis.

1 See how much better your sentences would read here.

• Shor: In the end I mostly go with @Ryan Reich's answer, but you and @Rafael Beraldo make additional important points. I'm minded to say that - probably with no concious effort on your part - you only used I once in your second paragraph. And that was only to quote the word. When I compare my sentences here with yours, I think yours look more authoritative, academic, educational, etc. You say you don't see anything wrong with I, but I bet you wouldn't use it in OP's position lol –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:47
• 3 @FumbleFingers: The lack of pronouns I and you in my second paragraph was quite deliberate, and took some effort. –  Peter Shor Commented May 11, 2011 at 1:30
• Shor: Ah. Well, it was worth the effort from my point of view, if that's any recompense for your labours. But I notice you don't deny you'd avoid using I in a thesis yourself, even if you wouldn't think of that as particularly wrong on the part of someone else. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 11, 2011 at 2:40
• @FumbleFingers: I've only written one thesis, and the pronoun we is the one I mainly used in it. –  Peter Shor Commented May 11, 2011 at 10:30
• 1 some authors use I instead of we when only one author: link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-008-0435-3 –  Tomas Commented Apr 13, 2016 at 10:39

By all means write "I". By an amusing coincidence, I have in front of me the article Deformations of Symmetric Products , a proceedings article published by Princeton University Press. The author is the late George R. Kempf, a distinguished algebraic geometer, and on the very first page I read [not we read:-)]: "My proof uses heavily the deformation theory..." . And on the second page "I will use without particular references standard facts from deformation theory". I could give any number of examples: this usage is quite widespread.

• 1 The very example you give supports the opposite view. As a ' distinguished algebraic geometer ', of course Kempf could get away with "I" if he wanted to be self-indulgent. It may become less noticed in future, but in the here and now many (including perhaps those who will assess OP's thesis) both notice and deplore it. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:22
• 1 @FumbleFingers: I just gave a factual reference to show that "I" is indeed used. Calling the late George Kempf self-indulgent is rather insulting. –  Georges Elencwajg Commented May 11, 2011 at 9:52
• 1 I have no opinion on Kempf. Perhaps I should have used less loaded phrasing. I just meant that what's appropriate / acceptable for distinguished academicians isn't necessarily the best option for a somewhat more humble thesis-writer. Okay, it was OTT to baldly say your example supports the opposite view. But depending how you look at things, it supports either or neither position. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 11, 2011 at 13:44

Many people in academia encourage the use of “we” instead of “I”, although many other people don’t — I can easily remember that Chomsky, at least in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax , do use the first-person singular. Personally, I prefer to use “I”, if I’m the only author. I believe that it sounds much better, not to mention, humbler.

If you have an adviser, then you should really ask him. If you’re writing for a journal, see if they have published articles in which the author use “I” instead of “we”.

• 1 I like @Ryan Reich's answer better, to be honest. But you make the important additional point that much academic output can and should be guided by what's expected in context . Ask your advisor, mentor, editor or whatever if you don't already know that context. Don't do the 'unexpected' without being aware you're doing it, and having some idea how it'll go down. That would hardly be a rigorous academic approach. –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:33
• @FumbleFingers, thank you. For some reason, I find the use of “we” to be conservative. Although science is not a solo task,there is nothing bad in remembering the reader that this is only your interpretation and findings about the subject. This is less obvious when reading seminal books on any area — by saying “I”, the author reminds us that he is human, and not a king ruling. –  rberaldo Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:54
• I think it's a finely-balanced thing, and all your arguments carry weight. The bottom line for OP should be 'ask the man', but we can afford to have our own personal positions. I only wrote one thesis, decades ago, and I bet I never used "I" once. Since then I've been in programming, and I nearly always use "we" in comments (in code that I wrote alone), even though most of that code was never likely to even be read by anyone except me. YMMD –  FumbleFingers Commented May 10, 2011 at 23:19

Remember that in situations like this, it is common for the author to refer to himself as "this author," e.g., "This author proposes a novel solution to the problem of X."

• In general this author is used only for personal opinions. "This author believes that the statistical tools used in most previous articles on this topic are inadequate" , but not "this author collected samples ..." –  Peter Shor Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 11:45

How about using neither? What about using factual voice instead :

"A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes is proposed.""A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes will be proposed." or "Figure 4.2 shows that..."

"A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes will be proposed."

Was Replaced with :

"A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes is proposed."

in accordance with suggestions (details in comments below).

• 4 That is passive. Nothing wrong with it, but that's what it is. –  Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Commented May 10, 2011 at 12:09
• 1 Nix the "will be" with "has been". I recommend using positive and factual statements, and not futuristic promises. By the time someone reads this, the works has already been done, and has been reported on. –  John Alexiou Commented May 10, 2011 at 16:33
• 2 "Figure 4.2 shows that..." Good: definitely an improvement over the original. "A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes will be proposed." Terrible: this kind of use of the passive voice to avoid writing we or I makes papers much harder to read. –  Peter Shor Commented May 10, 2011 at 18:19
• #Peter : Thanks , What about "A new method to study cell differentiation in nematodes is proposed."? –  jimjim Commented May 10, 2011 at 22:27
• 2 @ja72: Not will be , not has been , A new method to study ... is proposed. You're proposing it as you write; the fact that the reader reads it later is completely immaterial; if you say has been , you are saying that you (or somebody else) proposed it in a previous paper. –  Peter Shor Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 11:36

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Should I Use “I”?

What this handout is about.

This handout is about determining when to use first person pronouns (“I”, “we,” “me,” “us,” “my,” and “our”) and personal experience in academic writing. “First person” and “personal experience” might sound like two ways of saying the same thing, but first person and personal experience can work in very different ways in your writing. You might choose to use “I” but not make any reference to your individual experiences in a particular paper. Or you might include a brief description of an experience that could help illustrate a point you’re making without ever using the word “I.” So whether or not you should use first person and personal experience are really two separate questions, both of which this handout addresses. It also offers some alternatives if you decide that either “I” or personal experience isn’t appropriate for your project. If you’ve decided that you do want to use one of them, this handout offers some ideas about how to do so effectively, because in many cases using one or the other might strengthen your writing.

Expectations about academic writing

Students often arrive at college with strict lists of writing rules in mind. Often these are rather strict lists of absolutes, including rules both stated and unstated:

• Each essay should have exactly five paragraphs.
• Don’t begin a sentence with “and” or “because.”
• Never include personal opinion.
• Never use “I” in essays.

We get these ideas primarily from teachers and other students. Often these ideas are derived from good advice but have been turned into unnecessarily strict rules in our minds. The problem is that overly strict rules about writing can prevent us, as writers, from being flexible enough to learn to adapt to the writing styles of different fields, ranging from the sciences to the humanities, and different kinds of writing projects, ranging from reviews to research.

So when it suits your purpose as a scholar, you will probably need to break some of the old rules, particularly the rules that prohibit first person pronouns and personal experience. Although there are certainly some instructors who think that these rules should be followed (so it is a good idea to ask directly), many instructors in all kinds of fields are finding reason to depart from these rules. Avoiding “I” can lead to awkwardness and vagueness, whereas using it in your writing can improve style and clarity. Using personal experience, when relevant, can add concreteness and even authority to writing that might otherwise be vague and impersonal. Because college writing situations vary widely in terms of stylistic conventions, tone, audience, and purpose, the trick is deciphering the conventions of your writing context and determining how your purpose and audience affect the way you write. The rest of this handout is devoted to strategies for figuring out when to use “I” and personal experience.

Effective uses of “I”:

In many cases, using the first person pronoun can improve your writing, by offering the following benefits:

• Assertiveness: In some cases you might wish to emphasize agency (who is doing what), as for instance if you need to point out how valuable your particular project is to an academic discipline or to claim your unique perspective or argument.
• Clarity: Because trying to avoid the first person can lead to awkward constructions and vagueness, using the first person can improve your writing style.
• Positioning yourself in the essay: In some projects, you need to explain how your research or ideas build on or depart from the work of others, in which case you’ll need to say “I,” “we,” “my,” or “our”; if you wish to claim some kind of authority on the topic, first person may help you do so.

Deciding whether “I” will help your style

Here is an example of how using the first person can make the writing clearer and more assertive:

Original example:

In studying American popular culture of the 1980s, the question of to what degree materialism was a major characteristic of the cultural milieu was explored.

Better example using first person:

In our study of American popular culture of the 1980s, we explored the degree to which materialism characterized the cultural milieu.

The original example sounds less emphatic and direct than the revised version; using “I” allows the writers to avoid the convoluted construction of the original and clarifies who did what.

Here is an example in which alternatives to the first person would be more appropriate:

As I observed the communication styles of first-year Carolina women, I noticed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

Better example:

A study of the communication styles of first-year Carolina women revealed frequent use of non-verbal cues.

In the original example, using the first person grounds the experience heavily in the writer’s subjective, individual perspective, but the writer’s purpose is to describe a phenomenon that is in fact objective or independent of that perspective. Avoiding the first person here creates the desired impression of an observed phenomenon that could be reproduced and also creates a stronger, clearer statement.

Here’s another example in which an alternative to first person works better:

As I was reading this study of medieval village life, I noticed that social class tended to be clearly defined.

This study of medieval village life reveals that social class tended to be clearly defined.

Although you may run across instructors who find the casual style of the original example refreshing, they are probably rare. The revised version sounds more academic and renders the statement more assertive and direct.

Here’s a final example:

I think that Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases, or at least it seems that way to me.

Better example

Aristotle’s ethical arguments are logical and readily applicable to contemporary cases.

In this example, there is no real need to announce that that statement about Aristotle is your thought; this is your paper, so readers will assume that the ideas in it are yours.

Determining whether to use “I” according to the conventions of the academic field

Which fields allow “I”?

The rules for this are changing, so it’s always best to ask your instructor if you’re not sure about using first person. But here are some general guidelines.

Sciences: In the past, scientific writers avoided the use of “I” because scientists often view the first person as interfering with the impression of objectivity and impersonality they are seeking to create. But conventions seem to be changing in some cases—for instance, when a scientific writer is describing a project she is working on or positioning that project within the existing research on the topic. Check with your science instructor to find out whether it’s o.k. to use “I” in their class.

Social Sciences: Some social scientists try to avoid “I” for the same reasons that other scientists do. But first person is becoming more commonly accepted, especially when the writer is describing their project or perspective.

Humanities: Ask your instructor whether you should use “I.” The purpose of writing in the humanities is generally to offer your own analysis of language, ideas, or a work of art. Writers in these fields tend to value assertiveness and to emphasize agency (who’s doing what), so the first person is often—but not always—appropriate. Sometimes writers use the first person in a less effective way, preceding an assertion with “I think,” “I feel,” or “I believe” as if such a phrase could replace a real defense of an argument. While your audience is generally interested in your perspective in the humanities fields, readers do expect you to fully argue, support, and illustrate your assertions. Personal belief or opinion is generally not sufficient in itself; you will need evidence of some kind to convince your reader.

Other writing situations: If you’re writing a speech, use of the first and even the second person (“you”) is generally encouraged because these personal pronouns can create a desirable sense of connection between speaker and listener and can contribute to the sense that the speaker is sincere and involved in the issue. If you’re writing a resume, though, avoid the first person; describe your experience, education, and skills without using a personal pronoun (for example, under “Experience” you might write “Volunteered as a peer counselor”).

A note on the second person “you”:

In situations where your intention is to sound conversational and friendly because it suits your purpose, as it does in this handout intended to offer helpful advice, or in a letter or speech, “you” might help to create just the sense of familiarity you’re after. But in most academic writing situations, “you” sounds overly conversational, as for instance in a claim like “when you read the poem ‘The Wasteland,’ you feel a sense of emptiness.” In this case, the “you” sounds overly conversational. The statement would read better as “The poem ‘The Wasteland’ creates a sense of emptiness.” Academic writers almost always use alternatives to the second person pronoun, such as “one,” “the reader,” or “people.”

Personal experience in academic writing

The question of whether personal experience has a place in academic writing depends on context and purpose. In papers that seek to analyze an objective principle or data as in science papers, or in papers for a field that explicitly tries to minimize the effect of the researcher’s presence such as anthropology, personal experience would probably distract from your purpose. But sometimes you might need to explicitly situate your position as researcher in relation to your subject of study. Or if your purpose is to present your individual response to a work of art, to offer examples of how an idea or theory might apply to life, or to use experience as evidence or a demonstration of an abstract principle, personal experience might have a legitimate role to play in your academic writing. Using personal experience effectively usually means keeping it in the service of your argument, as opposed to letting it become an end in itself or take over the paper.

It’s also usually best to keep your real or hypothetical stories brief, but they can strengthen arguments in need of concrete illustrations or even just a little more vitality.

Here are some examples of effective ways to incorporate personal experience in academic writing:

• Anecdotes: In some cases, brief examples of experiences you’ve had or witnessed may serve as useful illustrations of a point you’re arguing or a theory you’re evaluating. For instance, in philosophical arguments, writers often use a real or hypothetical situation to illustrate abstract ideas and principles.
• References to your own experience can explain your interest in an issue or even help to establish your authority on a topic.
• Some specific writing situations, such as application essays, explicitly call for discussion of personal experience.

Here are some suggestions about including personal experience in writing for specific fields:

Philosophy: In philosophical writing, your purpose is generally to reconstruct or evaluate an existing argument, and/or to generate your own. Sometimes, doing this effectively may involve offering a hypothetical example or an illustration. In these cases, you might find that inventing or recounting a scenario that you’ve experienced or witnessed could help demonstrate your point. Personal experience can play a very useful role in your philosophy papers, as long as you always explain to the reader how the experience is related to your argument. (See our handout on writing in philosophy for more information.)

Religion: Religion courses might seem like a place where personal experience would be welcomed. But most religion courses take a cultural, historical, or textual approach, and these generally require objectivity and impersonality. So although you probably have very strong beliefs or powerful experiences in this area that might motivate your interest in the field, they shouldn’t supplant scholarly analysis. But ask your instructor, as it is possible that they are interested in your personal experiences with religion, especially in less formal assignments such as response papers. (See our handout on writing in religious studies for more information.)

Literature, Music, Fine Arts, and Film: Writing projects in these fields can sometimes benefit from the inclusion of personal experience, as long as it isn’t tangential. For instance, your annoyance over your roommate’s habits might not add much to an analysis of “Citizen Kane.” However, if you’re writing about Ridley Scott’s treatment of relationships between women in the movie “Thelma and Louise,” some reference your own observations about these relationships might be relevant if it adds to your analysis of the film. Personal experience can be especially appropriate in a response paper, or in any kind of assignment that asks about your experience of the work as a reader or viewer. Some film and literature scholars are interested in how a film or literary text is received by different audiences, so a discussion of how a particular viewer or reader experiences or identifies with the piece would probably be appropriate. (See our handouts on writing about fiction , art history , and drama for more information.)

Women’s Studies: Women’s Studies classes tend to be taught from a feminist perspective, a perspective which is generally interested in the ways in which individuals experience gender roles. So personal experience can often serve as evidence for your analytical and argumentative papers in this field. This field is also one in which you might be asked to keep a journal, a kind of writing that requires you to apply theoretical concepts to your experiences.

History: If you’re analyzing a historical period or issue, personal experience is less likely to advance your purpose of objectivity. However, some kinds of historical scholarship do involve the exploration of personal histories. So although you might not be referencing your own experience, you might very well be discussing other people’s experiences as illustrations of their historical contexts. (See our handout on writing in history for more information.)

Sciences: Because the primary purpose is to study data and fixed principles in an objective way, personal experience is less likely to have a place in this kind of writing. Often, as in a lab report, your goal is to describe observations in such a way that a reader could duplicate the experiment, so the less extra information, the better. Of course, if you’re working in the social sciences, case studies—accounts of the personal experiences of other people—are a crucial part of your scholarship. (See our handout on  writing in the sciences for more information.)

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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• Tips & Guides

How To Avoid Using “We,” “You,” And “I” in an Essay

• Posted on October 27, 2022 October 27, 2022

Maintaining a formal voice while writing academic essays and papers is essential to sound objective. 

One of the main rules of academic or formal writing is to avoid first-person pronouns like “we,” “you,” and “I.” These words pull focus away from the topic and shift it to the speaker – the opposite of your goal.

While it may seem difficult at first, some tricks can help you avoid personal language and keep a professional tone.

Let’s learn how to avoid using “we” in an essay.

What Is a Personal Pronoun?

Pronouns are words used to refer to a noun indirectly. Examples include “he,” “his,” “her,” and “hers.” Any time you refer to a noun – whether a person, object, or animal – without using its name, you use a pronoun.

Personal pronouns are a type of pronoun. A personal pronoun is a pronoun you use whenever you directly refer to the subject of the sentence. 

Take the following short paragraph as an example:

“Mr. Smith told the class yesterday to work on our essays. Mr. Smith also said that Mr. Smith lost Mr. Smith’s laptop in the lunchroom.”

The above sentence contains no pronouns at all. There are three places where you would insert a pronoun, but only two where you would put a personal pronoun. See the revised sentence below:

“Mr. Smith told the class yesterday to work on our essays. He also said that he lost his laptop in the lunchroom.”

“He” is a personal pronoun because we are talking directly about Mr. Smith. “His” is not a personal pronoun (it’s a possessive pronoun) because we are not speaking directly about Mr. Smith. Rather, we are talking about Mr. Smith’s laptop.

If later on you talk about Mr. Smith’s laptop, you may say:

“Mr. Smith found it in his car, not the lunchroom!” 

In this case, “it” is a personal pronoun because in this point of view we are making a reference to the laptop directly and not as something owned by Mr. Smith.

Why Avoid Personal Pronouns in Essay Writing

We’re teaching you how to avoid using “I” in writing, but why is this necessary? Academic writing aims to focus on a clear topic, sound objective, and paint the writer as a source of authority. Word choice can significantly impact your success in achieving these goals.

Writing that uses personal pronouns can unintentionally shift the reader’s focus onto the writer, pulling their focus away from the topic at hand.

Personal pronouns may also make your work seem less objective. 

One of the most challenging parts of essay writing is learning which words to avoid and how to avoid them. Fortunately, following a few simple tricks, you can master the English Language and write like a pro in no time.

Alternatives To Using Personal Pronouns

How to not use “I” in a paper? What are the alternatives? There are many ways to avoid the use of personal pronouns in academic writing. By shifting your word choice and sentence structure, you can keep the overall meaning of your sentences while re-shaping your tone.

Utilize Passive Voice

In conventional writing, students are taught to avoid the passive voice as much as possible, but it can be an excellent way to avoid first-person pronouns in academic writing.

You can use the passive voice to avoid using pronouns. Take this sentence, for example:

“ We used 150 ml of HCl for the experiment.”

Instead of using “we” and the active voice, you can use a passive voice without a pronoun. The sentence above becomes:

“150 ml of HCl were used for the experiment.” 

Using the passive voice removes your team from the experiment and makes your work sound more objective.

Take a Third-Person Perspective

Another answer to “how to avoid using ‘we’ in an essay?” is the use of a third-person perspective. Changing the perspective is a good way to take first-person pronouns out of a sentence. A third-person point of view will not use any first-person pronouns because the information is not given from the speaker’s perspective.

A third-person sentence is spoken entirely about the subject where the speaker is outside of the sentence.

Take a look at the sentence below:

“In this article you will learn about formal writing.”

The perspective in that sentence is second person, and it uses the personal pronoun “you.” You can change this sentence to sound more objective by using third-person pronouns:

“In this article the reader will learn about formal writing.”

The use of a third-person point of view makes the second sentence sound more academic and confident. Second-person pronouns, like those used in the first sentence, sound less formal and objective.

Be Specific With Word Choice

You can avoid first-personal pronouns by choosing your words carefully. Often, you may find that you are inserting unnecessary nouns into your work. 

Take the following sentence as an example:

“ My research shows the students did poorly on the test.”

In this case, the first-person pronoun ‘my’ can be entirely cut out from the sentence. It then becomes:

“Research shows the students did poorly on the test.”

The second sentence is more succinct and sounds more authoritative without changing the sentence structure.

You should also make sure to watch out for the improper use of adverbs and nouns. Being careful with your word choice regarding nouns, adverbs, verbs, and adjectives can help mitigate your use of personal pronouns. 

“They bravely started the French revolution in 1789.” 

While this sentence might be fine in a story about the revolution, an essay or academic piece should only focus on the facts. The world ‘bravely’ is a good indicator that you are inserting unnecessary personal pronouns into your work.

We can revise this sentence into:

“The French revolution started in 1789.” 

Avoid adverbs (adjectives that describe verbs), and you will find that you avoid personal pronouns by default.

Closing Thoughts

In academic writing, It is crucial to sound objective and focus on the topic. Using personal pronouns pulls the focus away from the subject and makes writing sound subjective.

Hopefully, this article has helped you learn how to avoid using “we” in an essay.

When working on any formal writing assignment, avoid personal pronouns and informal language as much as possible.

While getting the hang of academic writing, you will likely make some mistakes, so revising is vital. Always double-check for personal pronouns, plagiarism , spelling mistakes, and correctly cited pieces. 

 You can prevent and correct mistakes using a plagiarism checker at any time, completely for free.

Quetext is a platform that helps you with all those tasks. Check out all resources that are available to you today.

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“I” & “We” in Academic Writing: Examples from 9,830 Studies

I analyzed a random sample of 9,830 full-text research papers, uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021, in order to explore whether first-person pronouns are used in the scientific literature, and how?

I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).

Popularity of first-person pronouns in the scientific literature

In our sample of 9,830 articles, 93.8% used the first-person pronouns “I” or “We”. The use of the pronoun “We” was a lot more prevalent than “I” (93.1% versus 13.9%, respectively).

In fact, even articles written by single authors were more likely to use “We” instead of “I”. Out of 9,830 articles, 39 were written by single authors: 8 of them used “I” and 19 used “We”.

The following table describes the use of first-person pronouns in each section of the research article:

Use of the pronoun “I”

The pronoun “I” was mostly used in the Methods section (present in 7.29% of all methods sections in our sample).

For example:

“In general, I assumed a steady-state and a closed-population.” Link to the article on PubMed

“I” was also prevalent in the Results section (6.28%). But here, all of its uses were to quote participants’ answers, such as:

The respondents stated, “ I am scared to get infected and infect my family when I go home” Link to the article on PubMed

“I” was scarcely used in the Discussion section, for example:

“Based on this observation, I suggest that future research on this population seek to increase the participation of Indigenous communities.” Link to the article on PubMed

And only 1 article of 9,830 used the pronoun “I” in the abstract:

“By using the largest publicly available cancer incidence statistics (20 million cases), I show that incidence of 20 most prevalent cancer types in relation to patients’ age closely follows the Erlang probability distribution (R 2  = 0.9734-0.9999).” Link to the article on PubMed

Use of the pronoun “We”

The pronoun “We” was primarily used in the Discussion section (in 85.65% of the cases). For example:

“Although we cannot rule out this potential bias, we expect that missing data in our analysis did not depend on our dependent variable.” Link to the article on PubMed

Followed by the Methods section (68.29%). For example:

“Depending on the severity and chronicity of disease, we applied three different time frames” Link to the article on PubMed

Then followed by the Introduction (64.31%). For example:

“Instead of using time series analysis, we conducted a manipulative field experiment.” Link to the article on PubMed

“We” is used to a lesser extent in the Results section (52.36%). For example:

“In contrast, we did not find differences in survival when mutants where challenged with acute oxidative stress (Figure S5)” Link to the article on PubMed

And a lot less in the Abstract. For example:

“In this study, we analyzed and summarized seven RCTs and four meta-analyses.” Link to the article on PubMed

Article quality and the use first-person pronouns

The following table compares articles that used first-person pronouns with those that did not use first-person pronouns regarding:

• The number of citations per year received by these articles
• The impact factor of the journals in which these articles were published

The data show that higher-quality articles (those that bring more citations and those published in high-impact journals) tend to use first-person pronouns.

In other words, high article quality is correlated with the use of first-person pronouns.

• Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing,  Bioinformatics , btz070, 2019.

Further reading

• Paragraph Length: Data from 9,830 Research Papers
• Can a Research Title Be a Question? Real-World Examples
• How Long Should a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,519 Examples
• How Many References to Cite? Based on 96,685 Research Papers
• How Old Should References Be? Based on 3,823,919 Examples

Is it acceptable to use “we” in scientific papers?

Some of us were taught in school that the use of first-person personal pronouns makes scientific writing subjective. But it’s not true. Using we or I in a research paper does not always shift the spotlight away from the research. And writing in the third person or using passive voice does not make a piece of research writing objective. So, if a reviewer or thesis advisor tells you to remove all first-person references from your manuscript, know that it is not incorrect to use I or we in a paper, despite what many people believe.

So, the short answer to the question in the title is yes. It is acceptable to use we in your paper to refer to you and your co-authors. Whether you use first person pronouns or not is a writing style choice.

Of course, if your publisher’s guidelines for authors say “don’t use I or we in your manuscript”, avoid using I or we when there are valid alternatives. When the publication of your paper is at stake, don’t argue with the journal editor on matters of writing style. It’s not worth the candle. The good news is that most peer-reviewed journals allow the use of first-person pronouns.

The authorial we (or I ) in scientific papers is not only acceptable but also effective in some cases—for example, when passive voice may introduce ambiguity . For example, compare these two sentences:

Three analyses were conducted by the researchers.

We conducted three analyses.

In the first sentence, it is not clear who the researchers are. Are they the authors of the study or other researchers? However, there is no ambiguity in the second sentence.

Also, it’s natural to write in the first person about a research you and your co-authors personally conducted. Compare

We found an old manuscript

The authors of this paper found an old manuscript

an old manuscript was found .

Finally, writing in the first person is more persuasive than writing impersonal prose, as Helen Sword says in Stylish Academic Writing :

“When we muzzle the personal voice, we risk subverting our whole purpose as researchers, which is to foster change by communicating new knowledge to our intended audience in the most effective and persuasive way possible.”

If you’re not sure whether you should use we in scientific writing, write in a way you’re comfortable with. But avoid awkward expressions such as to the best knowledge of the authors of this paper or the analysis conducted by the authors of this study . Sometimes there is no better option than using first-person pronouns in academic writing. Finally, if you still have doubts, get other people’s opinion.

Do you need a freelance editor for a scientific paper? Send me a message at [email protected].

About Cristina N.

A freelance editor and writer with a keen interest in science, nature, and communication, I love to craft articles that help and inspire people.

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Single author scientific paper, 'we' or 'I'?

I am authoring a single author paper. Usually when referring to oneself in a paper, 'we' is used. In single author papers I found both 'we' and 'I' (e.g., 'here we/I report xyz').

Which one is stylistically better? To me 'we' seems odd when I read a single author paper.

• scientific-publishing

• 5 Already answered here: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/… –  Dan Romik Commented Nov 23, 2016 at 16:58
• I think your question has more to do with the fact that it's a scientific paper than the appropriateness of writing style. –  user6035379 Commented Nov 23, 2016 at 19:17
• @DanRomik thank you for that link, this basically answered my question. –  Dahlai Commented Nov 24, 2016 at 10:28
• What did you use finally? We or I? I think I am encountering the same problem here. –  Lin Cheng Commented Aug 3, 2020 at 21:27
• I followed @DanRomik's and Monical Cellio's suggestions –  Dahlai Commented Aug 5, 2020 at 7:55

5 Answers 5

The convention in scientific writing, at least in the hard sciences, is to avoid "I" even for single-author papers. I suspect (but can't prove) that this is why you see so much passive voice in such papers ("the doohickey was then frobitzed to induce a somethingorother reaction").

According to this well-received answer on Academia , you can view use of "we" as an editorial "we" or "we, as in the author and the readers". The latter approach works better for descriptive writing ("we see the following results...") than reporting ("we did X").

Ultimately you should base your decision on the submission requirements of the institution where you intend to publish the paper. But in general, "I" is uncommon, "we" is used even for single-author papers, and you can use "we" in a way that doesn't have to seem weird.

If it's a single author, use I. I is for singular, and if you are doing the research and all that stuff by yourself, then take credit, unless someone's helped you. If you use "we", then there must be more people other than you doing the research, or someone has been helping you.

Check here for more information.

If you are the only one behind the research and the writing behind the paper, I is a singular term and should therefore should be used instead of we. There is no "we" behind the paper if there was only one person masterminding the project. Although, If this was a formal Scientific paper, It Usually is incorrect to refer to ones self during the script; the point is to present your point, not the fact that you found it(although if you found something completely unique and incredibly interesting, by all means, announce the fact of your hand behind the discovery-outside of the paper.)

I would like to add to this debate (and maybe introduce some updated information) by pointing out that the American Psychological Association (APA) appears to recommend the first-person singular for works authored by a single person.

Furthermore, they problematize the use of third-person constructions (e.g., "The author ...").

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/first-person-pronouns

So most scientific papers are written with multiple voices. In the introduction the problem is discussed and the writing will refer to "This Study" or "This experiment" if it must refer to narrative person.

The second part describes the steps taken to get the results which will be discussed further in the paper. As this section is written as a set of instructions, the second person imperative voice is used, often with an implied "you" as the subject of the sentance (you do not write "you" but skip the subject and write the imperative verb.).

The next section is the results which is written in the form of a third person objective voice. In Third Person Objective, the writer should describe only the information that can be observed with the sense. This is often refered to as "Third Person Roving Camera" as most audio-visual media rely on Third Person Objective.

Finally, the conclusion should return to the same voice as the introduction. The conclusion should refer to the conclusion of the experiment and rely soley on the results as the basis of any statements made. The narrator should not speculate but merely states that the result sets do not support a conclusion to any questions or that the question asked is outside of the scope of the experiment or study.

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Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, using first person in an academic essay: when is it okay.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Jenna Pack Sheffield

Related Concepts: Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community ; First-Person Point of View ; Rhetorical Analysis; Rhetorical Stance ; The First Person ; Voice

In order to determine whether or not you can speak or write from the first-person point of view, you need to engage in rhetorical analysis. You need to question whether your audience values and accepts the first person as a legitimate rhetorical stance. Source:Many times, high school students are told not to use first person (“I,” “we,” “my,” “us,” and so forth) in their essays. As a college student, you should realize that this is a rule that can and should be broken—at the right time, of course.

By now, you’ve probably written a personal essay, memoir, or narrative that used first person. After all, how could you write a personal essay about yourself, for instance, without using the dreaded “I” word?

However, academic essays differ from personal essays; they are typically researched and use a formal tone . Because of these differences, when students write an academic essay, they quickly shy away from first person because of what they have been told in high school or because they believe that first person feels too informal for an intellectual, researched text. While first person can definitely be overused in academic essays (which is likely why your teachers tell you not to use it), there are moments in a paper when it is not only appropriate, but also more effective and/or persuasive to use first person. The following are a few instances in which it is appropriate to use first person in an academic essay:

• Including a personal anecdote: You have more than likely been told that you need a strong “hook” to draw your readers in during an introduction. Sometimes, the best hook is a personal anecdote, or a short amusing story about yourself. In this situation, it would seem unnatural not to use first-person pronouns such as “I” and “myself.” Your readers will appreciate the personal touch and will want to keep reading! (For more information about incorporating personal anecdotes into your writing, see “ Employing Narrative in an Essay .”)
• Establishing your credibility ( ethos ): Ethos is a term stemming back to Ancient Greece that essentially means “character” in the sense of trustworthiness or credibility. A writer can establish her ethos by convincing the reader that she is trustworthy source. Oftentimes, the best way to do that is to get personal—tell the reader a little bit about yourself. (For more information about ethos, see “ Ethos .”)For instance, let’s say you are writing an essay arguing that dance is a sport. Using the occasional personal pronoun to let your audience know that you, in fact, are a classically trained dancer—and have the muscles and scars to prove it—goes a long way in establishing your credibility and proving your argument. And this use of first person will not distract or annoy your readers because it is purposeful.
• Clarifying passive constructions : Often, when writers try to avoid using first person in essays, they end up creating confusing, passive sentences . For instance, let’s say I am writing an essay about different word processing technologies, and I want to make the point that I am using Microsoft Word to write this essay. If I tried to avoid first-person pronouns, my sentence might read: “Right now, this essay is being written in Microsoft Word.” While this sentence is not wrong, it is what we call passive—the subject of the sentence is being acted upon because there is no one performing the action. To most people, this sentence sounds better: “Right now, I am writing this essay in Microsoft Word.” Do you see the difference? In this case, using first person makes your writing clearer.
• Stating your position in relation to others: Sometimes, especially in an argumentative essay, it is necessary to state your opinion on the topic . Readers want to know where you stand, and it is sometimes helpful to assert yourself by putting your own opinions into the essay. You can imagine the passive sentences (see above) that might occur if you try to state your argument without using the word “I.” The key here is to use first person sparingly. Use personal pronouns enough to get your point across clearly without inundating your readers with this language.

Now, the above list is certainly not exhaustive. The best thing to do is to use your good judgment, and you can always check with your instructor if you are unsure of his or her perspective on the issue. Ultimately, if you feel that using first person has a purpose or will have a strategic effect on your audience, then it is probably fine to use first-person pronouns. Just be sure not to overuse this language, at the risk of sounding narcissistic, self-centered, or unaware of others’ opinions on a topic.

Recommended Readings:

• A Synthesis of Professor Perspectives on Using First and Third Person in Academic Writing
• Finding the Bunny: How to Make a Personal Connection to Your Writing
• First-Person Point of View

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Is it best to use "we" or "I" in the PhD thesis?

I am close to being finished with my PhD thesis, but i have been struggling with this issue lately.

My thesis is based on 4 manuscript of which there are multiple co-authors (with me being first author). In those, we use "we" to describe all our actions and thoughts. No problem.

In my PhD thesis, my supervisor is encouraging me to use "I" instead of "we" in the discussion/conclusion. This feels very unnatural to me as all the findings are based on the results that "we" found in the manuscripts.

This has led me to balance the use of we/I, where I use "I" whenever i describe something only I did (e.g. experiments). And "we" when referring to conclusions. However, i am a bit at loss about what to do.

Any seasoned academics that can offer some advice? (My supervisor is out of office, hence why i post the question here and not to my supervisor directly)

Is it recommended to use "we" in research papers?

1 expert answer.

Megan H. answered • 03/22/19

Professional, Energetic Writing Teacher with 9 Years of Experience

Generally speaking, it is frowned upon to use any first- or second-person pronouns in academic writing (i.e. I, me, my, myself, you, your, yours, yourself, we, us, our, ourselves). That's because in truly scientific writing, your personal identity should play no role in the validity or framing of your research and reporting.

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Can You Use "I" or "We" in Research Paper

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What is a research paper?

Work on the research paper is one of the most important forms of the educational process. It is aimed primarily at practical training and is carried out in accordance with the curriculum.

In accordance with the Regulation on the organization of the educational process of higher educational institutions of almost all countries of the world, the research paper is carried out in order to consolidate, deepen and summarize the knowledge gained by students during the study, and their application to a comprehensive solution to a specific task.

New requirements for the quality of training specialists that meet the needs of the modern stage of scientific and technical and socio-economic development of the country, make the research work of students an important factor in improving the entire system of training specialists.

Students must constantly increase their knowledge, respond promptly to the demands of the progress of science and technology. In connection with this, the issues related to the functions of the research work of the students in higher education are of particular relevance, and the education of specialists must be organically linked with the enhancement of their creative potential.

There are many ways of starting the research paper . It can be a quote, a question, information from a blog or any other source, and right now, we’ll provide you with the information on whether you can start it with the story.

Can I use “I” in a research paper.

During writing a research paper, we are faced with many questions we need to find answers to. This article is devoted to giving you the best answers for questions: can I say “I” in a research paper, can you use I in a research paper MLA, can you say We in a research paper and can you use I or We in a research paper.

Let’s start from can you use “I” in a research paper.

• The answer for the question can a research paper use i is the next: the use of the first person varies considerably between disciplines – most common in the humanities, least common in the physical sciences, with social sciences coming, as you’d expect, in the middle. However, the only field, where no use of the first person in (admittedly small) sample wasn’t found was accountancy. Draw your own conclusions.
• Use of the first person was most common in the introductions of papers; e.g., “I shall argue that …” Interestingly, conclusions, where students love to write things like “in my opinion ….” or “I strongly believe …” were relatively free of first-person usage.
• Where phrases like “I think” and “in my opinion” are used, it is often used to make the opinion weaker, not stronger. “I think” means, “I think, but I’m not sure”; “in my opinion” means “this is only my opinion – it’s not the only conclusion you can draw.” (This contrasts with some kinds of business and technical writing, where your opinion is central).

To sum up, the answer for the question can I write I in a research paper is the next: use “I” carefully, bearing in mind your audience, the field in which you are writing and what you are doing in that particular part of the essay, and use “in my opinion” rarely, if at all.

Use “i” in the MLA research paper.

The answer to the question can I use “i” in the MLA research paper is the same as can you use I in a research paper. The general writing style of the research paper is slightly more formal than that of a regular essay. You should avoid all contractions like don’t or won’t; instead, write out the phrases do not and will not. Do not begin any sentences with, and, or, but; instead, use slightly more formal words like Also and However.

If your topic is something scientific or medical, be sure to explain and “break down” any technical words or medical terms. Re-define them in your own words so that the reader can easily understand them. Doing this will also help you to understand the terms by yourself.

Usually, you should try to “set up” the reader for a long story before typing it. In other words, tell the reader what the point of the story is supposed to be. What is the reader supposed to get out of the story? Why do you include it in your paper? What does the story show or prove?

Can I say “we”

There are many discussions about whether we can use I in research papers, as well as can you use “we” in a research paper. There is no clear answer to this question, as you can do both. It’s not prohibited in the rules of academic writing not to use first-person pronouns.

However, the use of “I” and “we” still has some generally accepted rules we ought to follow. For example, the first person is more likely used in the abstract, introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections of an academic paper while the third person and passive constructions are found in the methods and results sections.

It’s not easy to write a good research paper. We need to break the mountain of textbooks, periodical literature, read the works of eminent scientists. As a result, the original text should be obtained, with the same success based on both existing developments and new student ideas.

Also, students often look for information about a psychological research paper.

Check what your teacher thinks about that issue. Do not neglect the help of your instructor, he/she can suggest interesting directions, help to find the right literature. Consultations will allow you to write a qualitative, interesting, and unique research paper.

Can you use “i” or “we” in a research paper?

As far as you can see, the research paper is a journalistic work in which the author sets the task of analyzing an existing scientific problem or certain phenomena from the point of view, first of all, of the regularities lying on their basis. The research paper has a certain composition; its contents should be deployed in a definite sequence.

In particular, the author must first explain the relevance of choosing one or another problem, the degree of its elaboration in the scientific literature, and the practical activities of the industry; define the purpose of the publication, present your thoughts and substantiate them, summarize briefly.

You should decide, can I say “we” in a research paper or can you use the word “i” in a research paper, as in modern academic writing, both ways are popular. Your paperwork should contribute to the profound learning of the lecture course and the acquisition of skills in solving practical problems.

It requires from the student not only the knowledge of the general and special literature on the subject but also the ability to conduct economic, mathematical, expert and other research, to link theory with practice, to generalize, to formulate conclusions and suggestions on improving the efficiency of the service sector and international economic relationships.

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Most professors will require the use of academic (AKA peer-reviewed) sources for student writing. This is because these sources, written for academic audiences of specific fields, are helpful for developing your argument on many topics of interest in the academic realm, from history to biology. While popular sources like news articles also often discuss topics of interest within academic fields, peer-reviewed sources offer a depth of research and expertise that you cannot find in popular sources. Therefore, knowing how to (1) identify popular vs. academic sources, (2) differentiate between primary and secondary sources, and (3) find academic sources is a vital step in writing research. Below are definitions of the two ways scholars categorize types of sources based on when they were created (i.e. time and place) and how (i.e. methodology):

Popular vs. academic sources:

• Popular sources are publicly accessible periodicals–newspapers, magazines, and blogs–such as The Washington Post or The New Yorker . These sources are most often written for non-academic audiences, but can be helpful for finding general information and a variety of opinions on your topic.
• Academic sources , known also as peer reviewed or scholarly articles, are those that have undergone peer review before being published. Typically, these articles are written for other scholars in the field and are published in academic journals, like Feminist Studies or The American Journal of Psychology . Literature reviews, research projects, case studies, and notes from the field are common examples.

Primary vs. secondary sources:

• Primary sources are articles written by people directly involved in what they were writing about, including: News reports and photographs, diaries and novels, films and videos, speeches and autobiographies, as well as original research and statistics.
• Secondary sources , on the other hand, are second hand accounts written about a topic based on primary sources. Whether a journal article or other academic publication is considered a secondary source depends on how you use it.

How to Find Academic Sources

Finding appropriate academic sources from the hundreds of different journal publications can be daunting. Therefore, it is important to find databases –digital collections of articles–relevant to your topic to narrow your search. Albertson’s Library has access to several different databases, which can be located by clicking the “Articles and Databases” tab on the website’s homepage, and navigating to “Databases A-Z” to refine your search. Popular databases include: Academic Search Premier and Proquest Central (non-specific databases which include a wide variety of articles), JSTOR (humanities and social sciences, from literature to history), Web of Science (formal sciences and natural sciences such as biology and chemistry), and Google Scholar (a web search engine that searches scholarly literature and academic sources). If you are unable to access articles from other databases, make sure you’re signed in to Alberton’s Library through Boise State!

Performing a Database Search

Databases include many different types of sources besides academic journals, however, including book reviews and other periodicals. Using the search bar , you can limit search results to those containing specific keywords or phrases like “writing center” or “transfer theory.” Utilizing keywords in your search–names of key concepts, authors, or ideas–rather than questions is the most effective way to find articles in databases. When searching for a specific work by title, placing the title in quotation marks will ensure your search includes only results in that specific word order. In the example below, search terms including the author (“Virginia Woolf”) and subject (“feminism”) are entered into the popular database EBSCOhost:

Refining Your Search Results

Many databases have a bar on the left of the screen where you can further refine your results. For example, if you are only interested in finding complete scholarly articles, or peer-reviewed ones, you can toggle these different options to further limit your search. These options are located under the “Refine Results” bar in EBSCOhost, divided into different sections, with a display of currently selected search filters and filter options to refine your search based on your specific needs, as seen in the figure below:

Search results can also be limited by subject : If you search “Romeo and Juliet” on Academic Search Premier to find literary analysis articles for your English class, you’ll find a lot of other sources that include this search term, such as ones about theater production or ballets based on Shakespeare’s play. However, if you’re writing a literary paper on the text of the play itself, you might limit your search results to “fiction” to see only articles that discuss the play within the field of literature. Alternatively, for a theater class discussing the play, you might limit your search results to “drama.”

The Writing Center

Nursing aide turned sniper: Thomas Crooks' mysterious plot to kill Trump

BUTLER, Pa. – Donald Trump and would-be assassin Thomas Crooks started on their violent collision course long before the former president's political rally ended in gunshots and death.

Crooks, 20, was a one-time registered Republican, a nursing home worker with no criminal record, shy in school, and living in a decent middle-class neighborhood in suburban Pennsylvania with his parents. Trump, 78, was eyeing Crooks' state as a key battleground – but not in the way that anyone envisioned on Saturday.

Riding high on polls showing that he's got a strong chance of toppling President Joe Biden, the former president had been campaigning for reelection in swing states, and Pennsylvania is a key prize. Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it four years later.

And on July 3, Trump's campaign announced he would hold a rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.

"Pennsylvania has been ravaged by monumental surges in violent crime as a direct result of Biden’s and Democrats’ pro-criminal policies," Trump's campaign said in announcing the event, noting that when he's elected, he'll "re-establish law and order in Pennsylvania!"

The Saturday attack on Trump turned the heated rhetoric of the 2024 presidential campaign freshly violent. Authorities said bullets fired from Crooks' AR-15 style rifle about 150 yards away grazed Trump's ear, killed a rally attendee as he dove to protect his family, and critically wounded two others. Secret Service agents killed Crooks moments later.

Attack planned well in advance

Investigators are still seeking Crooks' motive – despite his Republican leanings, he had donated recently to a progressive voter-turnout campaign in 2021 – but indicated he'd planned the attack well in advance.

The shooting marks the first assassination attempt against a former or current U.S. president since President Ronald Reagan was injured in a March 1981 shooting at a Washington, D.C., hotel. 

There are many questions about why Crooks turned into a would-be presidential assassin, firing indiscriminately into hordes of political supporters.

FBI special agent Kevin Rojek said on a call with media that law enforcement located "a suspicious device" when they searched Crooks' vehicle and that it's being analyzed at the FBI crime lab.

"As far as the actions of the shooter immediately prior to the event and any interaction that he may have had with law enforcement, we're still trying to flesh out those details now," Rojek said.

None of Crooks' shocked neighbors or high school classmates described him as violent or that he in any way signaled he was intent on harming Trump. Sunday morning, reporters and curious locals swarmed the leafy streets of the home where Crooks lived with his parents in Bethel Park, about 50 miles from the shooting scene.

Those who knew him described a quiet young man who often walked to work at a nearby nursing home. One classmate said he was bullied and often ate alone in high school.

Sunday morning, neighbor Cathy Caplan, 45, extended her morning walk about a quarter mile to glimpse what was happening outside Crooks’ home.“It came on the morning news and I was like ‘I know that street,’” said Caplan, who works for the local school district. "It feels like something out of a movie.”

Dietary aide turned deadly killer

Authorities say they are examining Crooks' phone, social media and online activity for motivation. They said he carried no identification and his body had to be identified via DNA and biometric confirmation.

Although no possible motive has yet been released, Crooks nevertheless embodies the achingly familiar profile of an American mass shooter: a young white man, isolated from peers and armed with a high-powered rifle. His attack was one of at least 59 shootings in the United States on Saturday, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

According to records and online posts of the ceremony, Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School, about 42 miles from Butler County, on June 3, 2022. That same day, Trump met briefly with investigators at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida as they examined whether he improperly took classified documents with him when he left the White House.

A classmate remembered Crooks as a frequent target of bullies. Kids picked on him for wearing camouflage to class and his quiet demeanor, Jason Kohler, 21, said. Crooks usually ate lunch alone, Kohler said.

Crooks worked as a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation, less than a mile from his home. In a statement provided to USA TODAY on Sunday, Marcie Grimm, the facility's administrator, said she was "shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement."

Neighbor Dean Sierka, 52, has known Crooks and his parents for years. The families live a few doors apart on a winding suburban street, and Sierka’s daughter, who attended elementary, middle and high school with Crooks, remembers him as quiet and shy. Sierka said they saw Crooks at least once a week, often when he was walking to the nursing home from his parents' three-bedroom brick house.

"You wouldn’t have expected this," Sierka said. "The parents and the family are all really nice people."

"It's crazy," he added.

Secret Service role: Did they do enough?

Founded in 1865, the Secret Service is supposed to stop this kind of attack, and dozens of agents were present Saturday. As the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump's public appearances are managed by the Secret Service, which works with local law enforcement to develop security plans and crowd-management protocols.

In the days before the event, the agency's experts would have scouted the location, identified security vulnerabilities, and designed a perimeter to keep Trump and rally attendees safe. Congress and the Secret Service are now investigating how Crooks was able to get so close to the former president, and several witnesses reported seeing him in the area with the gun before Trump took the stage.

As the event doors opened at 1 p.m., the temperature was already pushing close to 90, and ticketed attendees oozed through metal detectors run by members of the Secret Service's uniformed division. Similar to airport security screenings, rallygoers emptied their pockets to prove they weren't carrying guns or other weapons.

Media reports indicate the Secret Service had in place, as usual, a counter-sniper team scanning the surrounding area for threats.

In an exclusive interview, former Secret Service Director Julia Pierson told USA TODAY that maintaining such a sniper security perimeter is part of the agency's responsibility for safeguarding protectees like Trump from harm. She said agents typically consider 1,000 yards to be the minimum safe distance for sniper attacks.

The Secret Service has confirmed that it is investigating how Crooks got so close to Trump, who took the stage shortly after 6 p.m. Officials say Crooks' rifle was legally obtained but have not yet released specifics.

Outside the venue at that time, Greg Smith says he tried desperately to get the attention of police. He told the BBC that he and his friends saw a man crawling along a roof overlooking the rally. Other witnesses said they also saw a man atop the American Glass Research building outside the official event security perimeter, well within the range of a 5.56 rifle bullet.

"We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us," Smith told the BBC. "He had a rifle, we could clearly see him with a rifle."

Smith told the BBC that the Secret Service eventually saw him and his friends pointing at the man on the roof.

"I'm thinking to myself, why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage?" Smith said. "Next thing you know, five shots rang out."

From his nearby deck, Trump supporter Pat English watched as the former president took the stage to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," and attendees raised their cell phones to record.

English had taken his grandson to see the rally earlier but left when it got too hot. From his deck, they listened as Trump began speaking at 6:05 p.m., backed by a crown of red-hatted MAGA supporters waving "fire Joe Biden" signs.

And then gunfire began.

Boom, boom, boom

"I heard a 'boom, boom, boom' and then screams,” English said Sunday. "I could see people running and the police run in."

Trump was saying the word "happened" as the first pop rang out. He reached up to grab his ear as two more shots echoed, and the crowd behind him – and Trump himself – ducked. Plainclothes Secret Service agents piled atop the president as a fusillade of shots rang out, apparently the Secret Service killing Crooks.

The crowd screamed, and the venue's sound system picked up the agents atop Trump planning to move the former president to safety. One yelled, "shooter's down. Let's move, let's move."

The agents then helped Trump back to his feet as they shielded him on all sides.

The sound system then picked up Trump's voice: "Wait, wait," he said, before turning to the audience and triumphantly raising his fist to yell "fight, fight" as the crowd cheered, blood streaming down his face.

By 6:14 p.m. Trump's motorcade was racing from the scene, and in a later statement, Trump's campaign said he was checked out at a local medical facility.

"I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear," Trump said in a statement. "I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening."

Firefighter 'hero' gunned down

Outside of the Butler Township Administration Office Sunday afternoon, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro identified the rally attendee killed by Crooks as Corey Comperatore, a firefighter, father of two and longtime Trump supporter.

“Corey died a hero,” Shapiro said. “Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally. Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing.”

Two other Pennsylvanians are still undergoing treatment for their injuries, Shapiro said.

Pennsylvania State Police identified two wounded attendees David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township. Both are hospitalized and listed in stable condition. Shapiro said he spoke with the family of one victim and received a message from the other.

Biden spoke briefly with Trump on Saturday night, and the president condemned the assassination attempt as “sick.” He said there’s no place for political violence in the U.S. and called on Americans to unite together to condemn it.

But earlier in the week, Biden told campaign donors in a private phone call it was time to stop talking about his own disastrous presidential debate performance and start targeting Trump instead.

"I have one job and that's to beat Donald Trump," Biden said. "We're done talking about the (June 27) debate. It's time to put Trump in the bullseye."

Republicans across the country have used similar language to attack their opponents over the years, and political scientists say violent rhetoric used worldwide almost invariably leads to physical violence.

On Sunday, someone parked a truck-mounted electronic billboard at the gates to the Butler Farm Show grounds reading "Democrats attempted assassination," along with a picture of Trump clutching an American flag, his face overlaid with a bullseye crosshairs.

Authorities say they have not yet determined a motive for Crooks' attack. But in a statement, Trump declared the shooting an act of evil and thanked God for preventing the unthinkable.

"We will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness," Trump said.

And he said he'd be back on the campaign trail for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which starts Monday.

"Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and the Republican National Convention, by two days," Trump said on his Truth Social account Sunday, "but have just decided that I cannot allow a 'shooter,' or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else."

Contributing: David Jackson, Aysha Bagchi, Christopher Cann, Bryce Buyakie, Emily Le Coz, Josh Meyer, USA TODAY Network

How the assassination attempt unfolded : Graphics, maps, audio analysis show what happened

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What to use instead of academic 'we' when describing an experiment?

My research is in software engineering, but in a sub-field which is very close to social science. My papers normally contain sentences like "We conducted a study with 56 participants." and "Our previous study showed that [some assumptions are true]" and "We chose to use Cramer's V as the association measure, because [explanation why we thought it is better than other association measures]".

Now that I am close to my Ph.D. thesis, I am writing more texts alone, and the thesis is legally required to be my own work. So "we" is factually wrong. But using "I" feels immodest, and it is certainly unusual. But I don't know how to change my texts to avoid it.

I can't imagine how to apply the advice from that other answer to my case. "One conducted a study with 56 participants"? "The conducted study had 56 participants"? "A study was conducted, with 56 participants"? Unlike describing a mathematical proof, these sentences sound terrible. And how to explain my decision to use Cramer's V, when it is based on personal opinion?

Any advice how to deal with the matter outside of the world of mathematical proofs?

Another example why "I" might be needed. It is not only vanity; in the not-so-exact sciences there is sometimes lots of leeway involved. Say that I code some data. This is a very subjective process, and can be error prone. It is important for the readers to know that a coding was done by a single person, as this is considered less reliable than having somebody else repeat it and discuss any differences, and also because the coder has to take responsibility for any unusual decisions or errors.

There is a more general question on the same topic. But the accepted and highly-upvoted answer is from the point of view of a mathematician, it says that the writing style is best constrained to declarative sentences such as "Since p, it follows that q.".

• publications

• I am almost sure this is duplicate of academia.stackexchange.com/q/2945/546 . The only difference I can tell is that you're working on PhD thesis. Have you talked to your advisor yet? –  Nobody Commented Jan 4, 2014 at 11:07
• 1 @scaaahu it is a dupe, thank you for pointing it out. But the answers there don't help me, as the highly upvoted one assumes that I am making a proof. I can't say "One performed a study with 56 participants", etc. :( Maybe I will think of ways to re-write my question. –  rumtscho Commented Jan 4, 2014 at 11:15
• 4 @scaahu I rewrote it completely, to point out how it differs from the situation to which the answer of the other question applies –  rumtscho Commented Jan 4, 2014 at 11:31
• The study included 56 participants. For each sentence, identify the key verb. You are off track because you have focused on conducted as the key verb. Maybe you can aso avoid mentioning a person if you make the subject the study or the paper. –  Dawn Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 3:13

9 Answers 9

The use of the authorial 'we' is very common in academia even for single-author papers, as argued by many and properly referenced in the other question that you mention.

Personally, I would keep 'we' also for the thesis without bothering. I doubt anyone would misunderstand, but if you wish you can include a quick remark in the introduction: something like Despite the use of the 'authorial we', common in academia, this thesis is the sole work of its author . In many cases you are required to state that you are the only author anyway in some boilerplate forms in the front matter.

This looks much better to my eye than changing every sentence to a contorted passive form. Readability matters.

• Related: math.stackexchange.com/questions/1305775/… –  Pacerier Commented Sep 19, 2015 at 14:22

There are customs and habits that differ between disciplines, between research groups and between individuals. I would endeavour to claim that the trend is away from passive phrased (e.g. "was made" etc.) to active we and I but perhaps also from royal we's and expressions such as "this author" in favour for being to the point using "I". The key, however, lies in how the "I" is used. (in fact, "this author" may even be confused by the author of the latest referenced paper)

If you write a paper you can safely use I whenever you report on things you in particular have done. In methods sections, it concerns the choices of methods you (and nobody else) has made and in the results section it concerns the results you (and nobody else) has obtained and your choice which ones to highlight. In the discussion section you can use "I" whenever you make a point that you stand by, you can use we in parts where you perform a discussion with the reader; we meaning you and the reader. In short, the "I" signals your contributions and puts you (and nobody else) on the spot for criticism. So as I see it "I" is not a way to brag (which seems to scare many), it is exposing the fact that you alone stand for what is written.

I suggest you try to find good (recommended by peers) papers written in different styles and think about the styles with the aim of finding your own comfort zone. It is a matter of style, not right and wrong.

To cap off I want to highlight a couple of books that I personally, being a non-native English speaker, have found very useful:

Glasman-Deal, H., 2012. Science research writing for non-native speakers of English. Imperial College Press, London

Day, R.A. & Sakaduski, N., 2011. Scientific English. A guide for scientists and other professionals. Greenwood, Santa Barbara CA

I'm not sure about the conventions in social science, but the problem seems to be very close to what natural scientists face when writing a methods section, i.e., how an experiment was performed. If you look into the publications, you will see that these sections are almost exclusively written in the passive voice. The idea behind it is to take away the focus from the subject performing the experiment, putting more emphasis on tthe process instead. So you examples would become:

• A study with 56 participants was conducted.
• Cramer's V was chosen as the association measure, because...

"Our previous study" is still fine, when the previous study has several authors.

• Yes, that is, "passive voice" in verbs avoids first-person pronouns altogether. –  paul garrett Commented Jan 4, 2014 at 14:42
• Interestingly there is a parallel debate(?) in screenwriting, whether it is appropriate or proper or not to use "we see [character] suddenly jump back." in action text or screen direction. –  DuckMaestro Commented Feb 8 at 11:05

I am in cognitive psychology and frequently use, "In the present investigation." There are sometimes workarounds you can use to avoid passive voice such as, "56 adults participated in this study."

I want to add two thoughts based on APA style . While the passive voice may help in some circumstances (as demonstrated in other answers), overuse of the passive is sometimes considered bad style. The Publication Manual of the APA (6th) even says on page 77:

Prefer the active voice.

Furthermore, the APA manual contains something about attribution on page 69.

Inappropriately or illogically attributing action in an effort to be objective can be misleading.

Thus, if you did something, it may even be misleading if this information is hidden using some stilted writing. And APA explicitly mentions the usage of I for single-author pieces on page 69:

For clarity, restrict your use of we to refer only to yourself and your coauthors (use I if you are the sole author of the paper).

In summary, I think a good balance of passive and active is considered good style, and the usage of I (where appropriate) is slowly becoming acceptable.

If any co-authors, you need to use we since the readers don't know who the I is.

Use I, as needed for sole author pubs. I like I because it is a strong statement--there is a definite person to hold responsible. Don't use "we" if there are no co-authors (what you got a mouse in your pocket?) If you feel too hesitant about a bold I (or get static) than go to passive voice. But a "we" for a sole article is distracting.

Do not use I when it makes more sense to make the objects of the research, the subject of the sentences. For example NOT "I observed pitching as the stall angle was approached", but "the model started pitching near the listed stall angle, about 35 degrees". The reason is not for modesty but because (a) it is tighter writing and (b) the proper attention is on the model in the wind tunnel--your observation is not the point, here.

I recommend to avoid the passive voice, but some people will recommend it or expect it. Certainly if an editor requires it, just do it, don't argue. "The reactants were combined in a boiling flask..." Note, it does have the benefit of putting the attention on the science, not on you as an actor.

Some math writing uses we because the reader is included as an observer in a derivation, "after completing the square, we see...blabla".

I asked my supervisor directly. She said that she is OK with using "I" in the dissertation, but that it is "uncommon" to use it in articles. As she is always a co-author on our papers, I guess none of her students had to deal with the problem in the context of an article anyway :) And because she did not mention internal reports even though I specifically asked about them, I think that she doesn't care what I use in them.

This is just the opinion of one professor, and the answers here show me that there doesn't seem to be a good convention. So, my take-home message from the whole problem would be: ask your professor, he will probably have a position on it and it is wise for you as a student to follow it.

I'm facing the same problem, though in German language/natural science (conventions may vary somewhat).

The main problem with the passive construction is that it doesn't say at all who did it. Consider:

The algorithm was implemented.

How can the reader be sure it was you as opposed to your colleague giving you his code (particulary, if the corresponding paper is authored by multiple coauthors)? I'm told I cannot expect the reader to look up the source where the author is explicitly stated.

So for some (ver key points where I need to make really sure everyone gets the fact that I actually did work myself that is fairly common (e.g. in other groups in my field) to be done by colleagues, collaboration partners, students or technicians I use "I" even though is so uncommon that I get comments about the use of "I".

Assuming that commonly studies like the one with 56 participants have someone planning it, someone (else) doing the experiments/collecting the data, and someone (yet else) analyzing the data: make sure you properly acknowledge the contributions of your collaborators in the acknowledgements.

You can also use constructions like:

A study with 56 participants was conducted [ref]. This thesis focuses on [whichever part you did]

Otherwise, "This thesis shows that..." or

Throughout this thesis, Cramer's V is used as the association measure, because ...

get you a long way.

• For disciplines where passive voice is used, there's an English grammar convention that tells whether you or somebody else performed the work. You: The algorithm was implemented. Somebody else (or you, in a previous paper): The algorithm has been implemented. And of course, if you reference other people's work properly, this will also answer the question. –  Peter Shor Commented Apr 13, 2016 at 14:51
• @PeterShor: good to know. Not knowing this, I've produced papers for a decade that may be misleading... That being said, I'll try to remember this, but considering how many non-native English speakers publish (and not knowing which native languages have a similar concept of using time to denote contributions) I will not rely on this convention when reading papers. I'm anyways a big fan of a "contributions" paragraph at the end of the paper. –  cbeleites Commented Apr 13, 2016 at 15:42

We in PhD thesis typically mean: I am as an author and you as the reader . It is used in the sense that we together explore the topic . And it is just a kind of writing style to incorporate the reader.

Writing "We conducted a study with 56 participants" or "our previous study" can be considered as a bad writing style. Since it has not the same meaning and could be easily transferred in passive voice.

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Seven graduate students honored with Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (7/18/2024) – Seven graduate students advised by Department of Chemistry faculty members were recently awarded the University of Minnesota’s Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. The seven students honored by this prestigious award are Kaylee Barr, Brylon Denman, Madeline Honig, Chris Seong, Sneha Venkatachalapathy, Murphi Williams, and Caini Zheng.

Kaylee Barr , a Chemical Engineering and Materials Science PhD student, is entering her fifth year in the Reineke Group . Before making the move to Minnesota, she received her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas. “I came to the University of Minnesota because of the department's developments in polymer science, and because I was interested in the intersection of polymer science and drug delivery in Theresa Reineke's lab,” she says. Here at UMN, Kaylee studies how bottlebrush polymer architecture affects pH-responsive oral drug delivery. This summer, she is excited to grow professionally and as a scientist in an intern position at Genentech.

Brylon Denman is a Chemistry PhD candidate in the Roberts Group . She joined the UMN community in 2020 after completing her BS in Biochemistry at St. Louis University. “My research in the Roberts group seeks to resolve regioselectivity and reactivity issues within aryne methodology via ligand control,” Brylon says. “To accomplish this task, I have taken a mechanistic and hypothesis driven approach to understand how key molecular parameters modify regioselectivity and reactivity. I hope to use the knowledge I have gained from these studies to both improve the synthetic utility of aryne intermediates, and improve the sustainability of aryne reactions.” Brylon is also passionate about sustainable and green chemistry. As a founding member of the Sustainable and Green Chemistry committee, Brylon strives to collaborate with other department teammates to strengthen the culture of green and sustainable chemistry through integration into teaching, research, and community engagement. “In my career I aim to continue this advocacy and use my breadth of knowledge to enact sustainable change at a major pharmaceutical company as emphasizing sustainability on such a large scale can lead to a large impact,” she says. As she works through her internship at AbbVie this summer, Brylon is looking towards the future to outline her next steps after graduation.

Madeline Honig first experienced Chemistry at UMN during a summer REU experience in the Bühlmann Lab . She formally joined the Prof. Bühlmann's team in Fall 2020 after earning her BA in Chemistry from Earlham College. Her research here at UMN  has focused on the development and improved understanding of polymeric membrane-based ion-selective electrodes (ISEs). “One of my projects involves developing a quantitative parameter to better define the upper detection limits of these sensors which can be used to more accurately define sensor performance and predict the working range under different conditions,” Madeline says. “This research led us to investigate the unexplained 'super-Nernstian' responses of some pH-selective electrodes and expand the phase boundary model (the quantitative model that predicts ISE behavior) to include the formation of complexes between protonated ionophores and counter-ions in the sensing membrane. ISEs have been widely used for decades in clinical blood analysis among many other applications so it's exciting that I was still able to add to our fundamental understanding of how these sensors function.” One of Madeline’s goals is to use her research to enable the development of improved sensors that can be used in a wider range of conditions. Over the course of her graduate studies, Madeline has had the opportunity to be a graduate student mentor for two other students: Ariki Haba, a visiting master's student from Japan, and Katie O'Leary, a summer REU student, who both made significant contributions to the project. “Acting as a graduate mentor was really cool and I hope I can also make graduate-level chemistry research more approachable for everyone that I work with,” Madeline says. For her significant research efforts, Madeline was also recently selected in a national competition as one of the four winners of the 2024 Eastern Analytical Symposium Graduate Student Research Award. She will accept the award in November in Plainsboro NJ at the Eastern Analytical Symposium.

Chris Seong , an international student from New Zealand and PhD candidate in the Roberts Group, came to UMN after completing his BA with Distinction in Chemistry at St. Olaf College in 2020. Chris’ overarching chemistry interests involve the development of methods to utilize naturally abundant carboxylic acids as feedstock to synthesize medicinally relevant products, which are traditionally made with non-renewable starting materials derived from fossil fuels. “My earlier work has been focused on making alkyl-alkyl bonds through decarboxylation, but lately, in true Roberts Group fashion, I have turned my attention to using a similar mechanism to do aryne chemistry,” Chris says. He is currently working to publish a paper on the aryne project that he has been working on with two talented group mates; Sal Kargbo and Felicia Yu. “I am really excited to share this cool chemistry with the world,” he says. Outside of the lab, Chris is working on expanding his network to apply for jobs in the pharmaceutical industry – specifically in the early process space.

Sneha Venkatachalapathy is a member of the Distefano Group and an international student from India. She completed her BS in Chemistry with a minor degree in Biotechnology from Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, India in 2020. “Chemistry has always been my passion since high school. I still remember my first successful brown ring test that has left a remarkable fascination and interest towards chemistry,” Sneha says. “This early fascination has driven my academic journey, guided by mentors like Dr. Subhabrata Sen, who encouraged me to pursue a PhD in the United States.” Sneha was drawn towards working in the Chemical Biology research field where she could directly contribute to developing human life. “Joining Dr. Mark Distefano’s lab at UMN provided me with the chance to collaborate with Dr. Mohammad Rashidian from Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Together, we work towards expanding the scope of protein prenylation to construct protein-based cancer diagnostic tools,” she says. Sneha’s goal for her time in the UMN PhD program is to create innovative protein-based tools for cancer detection and treatment, aiming to enhance patient’s quality of life. She says she is looking forward to continuing to develop her leadership skills as she continues her doctorate, and is also exploring future opportunities beyond UMN. “One thing that motivates me daily is the belief that my research contributions to the scientific community would enhance our understanding of cancer diagnostic methods, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes worldwide,” she says.

Murphi Williams  completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, then joined the Bhagi-Damodaran at UMN in 2020. When it comes to research, Murphi is interested in chemical biology, more specifically, looking into proteins involved in important biological problems. “One of my major projects is developing and characterizing a potential inhibitor for  Mycobacterium tuberculosis , the bacteria that causes tuberculosis,” Murphi says. “Tuberculosis is the leading infectious disease so my projects center on understanding and inhibiting heme proteins important for the bacteria. Specifically, a previous lab member identified a small molecule that I've been characterizing the activity of in cells.” Her current research goal is to express and purify the protein targets for her small molecule inhibitor in the lab to further demonstrate the in vitro activity. She is also contemplating a future career in science communication. Outside of the lab, she enjoys working on her garden. 

Caini Zheng joined the Chemistry at the UMN in 2019 after finishing her undergraduate studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She is currently a sixth-year graduate student co-advised by Profs. Tim Lodge and Ilja Siepmann . Her research focuses on the phase behavior of soft materials, including polymers and oligomers. Her DDF statement is titled "Self-Assembly of Polymers and Amphiphiles into Bicontinuous Phases". Caini is currently working on a project to elucidate the self-assembly of glycolipids through molecular dynamics simulations coupled with machine learning methods. In the future, she wants to work in the industry on bridging data science with traditional material research.

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Transporting precious cargo using the body’s own delivery system

Advances ‘get us one step closer to the ultimate goal of targeted biological drug delivery’

Media Information

• Release Date: July 16, 2024

Media Contacts

Win Reynolds

• (413) 461-6314

Journal: Nature Communications

• Delivery systems in body continuously move materials between cells
• Hijacking these systems allowed scientists to improve loading and delivery of therapeutic proteins
• Biophysical principles could be used to enable more cost-effective loading of biological cargo into cell-derived delivery systems
• Engineered molecules loaded up to 240 times more protein than other loading methods

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Each cell in the body has its own unique delivery system that scientists are working on harnessing to move revolutionary biological drugs — molecules like proteins, RNA and combinations of the two — to specific diseased parts of the body.

A new study from Northwestern University hijacked the transit system and sent tiny, virus-sized containers to effectively deliver an engineered protein to its target cell and trigger a change in the cell’s gene expression. The success came from encouraging engineered proteins to move toward a specific cell membrane structure that the researchers found increased a protein’s likelihood of latching onto the container.

Published in July in the journal Nature Communications, the paper contends the novel technique could be generalizable, paving the road for the goal of targeted biological drug delivery.

The study brings researchers a step closer to addressing a major bottleneck for biological medicine development, determining how to protect fragile molecules in the body and ensure they reach the correct diseased cells in a patient without impacting healthy cells.

The research combines work from two labs in Northwestern’s Center for Synthetic Biology : those of biomedical engineer Neha Kamat and chemical and biological engineer Josh Leonard . The Kamat lab has largely focused on the design of synthetic containers and uses biophysical principles to control molecules targeting other cells.  Leonard’s lab develops tools to build these natural delivery containers, termed extracellular vesicles (EVs).

“We were interested in applying some of the biophysical insights that have emerged about how to localize proteins to specific membrane structures so that we could hijack this natural system,” said Kamat, the paper’s co-corresponding author and associate professor at the McCormick School of Engineering. “In this study, we discover general ways to load drug cargo into these vesicles very efficiently while preserving their function. This might enable more effective and affordable extracellular vesicle-based biological medicines.”

The keys to this “cargo loading” approach are sites on cell membranes called lipid rafts. These regions are more structured than the rest of the membrane and reliably contain specific proteins and lipids.

“Lipid rafts are thought by some to play a role in the genesis of EVs, as EV membranes contain the same lipids found in lipid rafts,” said Justin Peruzzi, who co-led the study with Taylor Gunnels as doctoral students in Kamat’s lab. Gunnels’ work in the lab is ongoing, and Peruzzi, who completed his Ph.D., works as a scientist at a protein-based medicine company. “We hypothesized that if we engineered proteins to associate with lipid rafts, they may be loaded into the vesicles, allowing them to be delivered to other cells.”

The team used protein databases and lab experiments to determine that lipid raft-association is an efficient method to load protein cargo into EVs, enabling up to a stunning 240 times more protein to be loaded into vesicles.

After discovering this biophysical principle, the researchers demonstrated a practical application of the method. They engineered cells to produce a protein called a transcription factor, loaded it into EVs and then delivered it to a cell to alter the recipient cell’s gene expression — without compromising the protein’s function upon delivery.

Kamat and Leonard said the main challenge in loading therapeutic cargo into EVs is that the producer cell and the recipient cell are often at odds with each other. In the cell producing the EV, for example, you might engineer therapeutic cargo to associate tightly to a membrane to increase the chance it moves into a soon-to-be released EV. However, this same behavior is often undesirable in a recipient cell because delivered cargo stuck to a membrane might be nonfunctional. Instead, you might want that cargo to release from the EV membrane and move to the cell’s nucleus to perform its biological function. The answer was the creation of cargo with reversible functions.

“Tools that enable reversible membrane association could be really powerful when building EV-based medicines,” said Gunnels. “Although we’re not yet sure of the precise mechanism, we see evidence of this reversibility with our approach. We were able to show that by modulating lipid-protein interactions, we could load and functionally deliver our model therapeutic cargo. Looking forward, we’re eager to use this approach to load therapeutically relevant molecules, like CRISPR gene-editing systems.”

The researchers said they’re eager to try the approach with medicinal cargo for disease applications in immunotherapy and regenerative medicine.

“If we can load functional biomedicines into EVs that are engineered to only deliver those biomolecules to diseased cells, we can open the door to treating all sorts of diseases,” said Leonard, the co-corresponding author and a McCormick professor. “Because of the generalizability that we observed in our system, we think this study's findings could be applied to deliver a wide array of therapeutic cargos for various disease states.”

The paper, titled “Enhancing extracellular vesicle cargo loading and functional delivery by engineering protein-lipid interactions,” was supported by the McCormick Research Catalyst Program at Northwestern University, the National Science Foundation (grants 1844219 and 2145050) and NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (DGE-1842165).

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How Can Academics Use GenAI in Their Research?

• Academics can use AI tools as aids to challenge assumptions, generate hypotheses, develop ideas, critique research designs, generate synthetic data, discern patterns, and discover anomalies.
• However, AI can return incorrect information, violate privacy standards, perpetuate biases, lead researchers to rely on it too heavily, and present ethical dilemmas.
• In an ongoing project, researchers are using GenAI to develop a chatbot tutor that will provide personalized and affordable support to students at minority-serving institutions.

  Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing the landscape for academic researchers. By creating novel avenues for them to tackle complex problems—from ending poverty to mitigating climate change to promoting sustainability—it is expanding what researchers can achieve. At the same time, GenAI introduces new risks that faculty need to understand and manage.

The route to GenAI came straight through big data, which profoundly impacted business and social sciences scholarship. Researchers initially used big data analytics to harness large datasets pertaining to complex business and societal phenomena. By identifying patterns of correlations within the data, researchers could apply predictive analytics to precisely estimate the behaviors and outcomes of individuals, teams, and organizations.

To deepen understanding and extract meaningful insights, researchers combined machine learning and deep learning with causal inference methods. This approach allowed them to assess how various factors affected the behaviors and outcomes of entities and how these effects varied across types of entities in different contexts.

As digital technologies and analytical methods have advanced, GenAI has emerged as a new player. Through conversational prompt-based interactions with GenAI, users can create new humanlike content and derive nuanced insights from existing datasets. Academics have opportunities to make the research process more efficient and innovative by leveraging AI as an automator of routine tasks and an augmenter of creative endeavors.

However, with these opportunities come risks. Content generated by AI is sometimes of low quality and has the potential to breach legal and privacy standards. I believe researchers must carefully manage these risks if they want to realize the benefits of GenAI without suffering adverse consequences.

Automation and Augmentation With GenAI

Researchers can use GenAI to automate routine data collection and preprocessing and to capture and integrate multimodal data such as texts, images, voice recordings, and videos. They also can rely on it to write and debug code, assist in copyediting, and streamline workflows.

In addition, they can use GenAI to augment their capabilities and skills to carry out seven key research tasks:

1. Challenging assumptions. As academics formulate research problems, they can have GenAI take on a role that is critical of their viewpoints. They can invite it to argue against their theoretical lenses and point out blind spots. Researchers often are vulnerable to making “ type three errors ”—that is, asking questions that might not be relevant or useful. To avoid this trap, they can use GenAI as a partner that can challenge bounded rationality and ensure that they do not fix prematurely on the lenses they use to formulate the problem and develop the research question.

2. Developing hypotheses. Scholars can input a premise for a hypothesis and ask GenAI to generate counterclaims, alternative explanations, reservations, and qualifications. They even can ask it to limit the claims to certain contexts or control the extent to which it offers speculations.

GenAI can create synthetic data that mimics the characteristics of real data. This allows researchers to augment training datasets, design test models, and ensure data privacy by using proxy counterfactuals.

3. Conceiving novel research designs. Researchers can invite GenAI to envision alternative or complementary approaches to their research designs. They can ask it how to improve the discovery of causal mechanisms underlying various effects, perhaps by using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to conduct a large-scale qualitative analysis using computational methods. They can even ask it to integrate the data from different sources and apply machine learning and NLP techniques to illuminate those causal mechanisms.

As an example, say researchers are planning an event study to determine what impact a cybersecurity breach would have on the market value of a firm. They could ask GenAI to probe the heterogeneity of the effect by type of breach and type of firm. From there, they could ask GenAI how to leverage information about the breach in earnings calls and 8-K reports, which track unscheduled events that could impact a company. Additionally, they could ask GenAI to predict how the market would react if they disclosed the breach, apologized to customers, and took action to contain the impact.

4. Generating synthetic data. GenAI can create high-quality, high-volume synthetic data that mimics the characteristics of real data. This allows researchers to augment training datasets, design test models, and ensure data privacy by using proxy counterfactuals. For example, GenAI can generate synthetic medical records to preserve patient privacy or create new imagery for a facial recognition system when real images are limited.

5. Simulating future states of the world. GenAI can forecast future scenarios by using historical and current data. When it does this at scale, it can evaluate a large number of conditions and variables, incorporating elements of uncertainty to produce comprehensive and diverse scenarios.

For example, academics can examine potential threats such as economic downturns, supply chain failures, and new technological or policy developments. Given the highly uncertain nature of business, political, technological, and global environments, such simulations can inform theory, practice, and policy as organizations prepare for exogenous shocks and transitions to different possible states of the world.

6. Discerning patterns. Before researchers move on to confirmatory analysis, they can use the technology to detect any interesting patterns that might be early predictors of something else.

7. Discovering anomalies. Researchers can upload a sales dataset and ask GenAI to identify and explain any anomalies that deviate from theoretical expectations. For instance, after pointing to an unexpected sales spike in a particular region, GenAI might provide contextual insights on promotional campaigns or competitor issues that explain the spike. This knowledge could spark the creative process and cause scholars to pivot to a new theoretical perspective.

Responsible GenAI Practices

Despite its many uses, GenAI presents risks that researchers must carefully manage. Fortunately, governments and professional organizations are beginning to draft useful standards that address these risks. In the U.S., guidance on the responsible and transparent use of AI is expected from bodies such as the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology . Increasing numbers of discipline-based societies and academic journals also are developing GenAI policies and requiring researchers to disclose how they have used the technology in their scholarly work. We can expect considerable experimentation to shape these policies in the future.

Overall, I believe researchers face challenges and must learn to mitigate risks in five main areas:

Content quality and legality. While GenAI reduces many of the cognitive demands on researchers, it also dramatically increases the amount of effort academics must make to ensure AI’s suggestions are high-quality and ethical. GenAI can go awry in several ways:

• It sometimes “hallucinates,” making up answers when it lacks information.
• Unlike human researchers, AI can’t use judgment to evaluate the quality of publications, so it indiscriminately includes studies of varying quality and reproducibility.
• GenAI can miss newer publications because the pool of knowledge used to inform its responses might have a cutoff date .
• AI’s effectiveness is limited by the biases and gaps in its training datasets.
• GenAI can generate text that closely mirrors copyrighted articles or books, leading to potential legal issues and plagiarism concerns.

The only way for researchers to avoid these problems is to verify the appropriateness of the content obtained from GenAI.

While GenAI reduces many of the cognitive demands on researchers, it also increases the amount of effort academics must make to ensure AI’s suggestions are high-quality and ethical.

Privacy. Whether accessing data or interacting with individuals, GenAI has been known to violate privacy standards. These include company confidentiality requirements and governmental regulations enacted by the United States’ Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ( FERPA ) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA ).

Many individuals do not fully understand how their personal information and social media activity can be mined by AI. Even anonymized data can lead to reidentification when GenAI cross-references multiple datasets, such as academic records and social media posts.

To avoid privacy violations, researchers can implement advanced anonymization methods, ensure informed consent, establish strict data access boundaries, undergo regular audits, generate synthetic data, and participate in ongoing training.

Synthetic data validity. While synthetic data isn’t necessarily good or bad, it might oversimplify entities and their relationships to ensure they fit computational models. When individuals and organizations are represented as artificial instances with certain attributes, critical information about them can be lost. To reduce this risk, researchers should consider combining extensive synthetic data with intensive data that digs deep into a phenomenon.

Citation bias. GenAI can perpetuate and reinforce certain popular bodies of work, viewpoints, and scholars through the citations it recommends, which creates cognitive trapping. If researchers prompt GenAI to suggest less popular, atypical combinations of citations, it will generate a broader scope of perspectives that can be used to challenge, replace, or enrich conventional ideas.

Peer reviewing. Peer reviewers are selected on the basis of their individual expertise, and peer critiques require substantial, privileged, and detailed information. If reviewers uploaded an article into a GenAI tool, they could not be certain where the tool would send, save, or use the article’s contents. This would absolutely violate confidentiality expectations for peer review.

Another problem is that GenAI tools are trained on data that exists and has been widely published. If GenAI is reviewing article submissions, it could default to common biases and homogenize original thought. Its critiques also could rise to the level of plagiarism.

To avoid these possibilities, it is best to leave reviewing tasks to humans for now. Journals, professional associations, and scholarly communities will need to carefully conceive, trial, and validate practices for human-AI collaborative reviewing before AI is involved in the reviewing process.

A Firsthand Example

When scholars are aware of and manage risks through responsible practices, they can leverage GenAI to automate tasks and enhance both the creative and analytical aspects of their research. Here’s an example from my own work at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business in Atlanta.

We are partnering with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge on an ongoing project sponsored by Axim Collaborative , a social enterprise dedicated to expanding access to education. The goal is to design and evaluate a large language model (LLM) tutor that promotes equitable student success in computing courses, specifically Python programming. The tutor will provide at-scale, personalized, and affordable support to students at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) across the learning levels of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy : remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

Innovation thrives on diverse, original thought. If we rely too heavily on GenAI, we lose the ability to make critical analyses and question information.

My colleagues and I have utilized GenAI to automate several tasks, including converting audio files from focus groups into text transcripts, summarizing key points from these transcripts, and extracting structured data from unstructured chat logs. Moreover, GenAI helped us identify specific information that was embedded in lengthy paragraphs, such as questions students had posed to the LLM tutor.

GenAI also enabled us to use chat logs to discover patterns and challenges in students’ learning pathways. Using ChatGPT-4o , we classified messages between students and the LLM tutor according to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy, then we clustered these interactions based on transitions across taxonomy levels. This approach allowed us to visualize how each student and each group transitioned within their clusters, which helped us identify anomalies for further investigation.

In addition, we used GenAI in a discursive manner to explore how the complementary insights of contemporary learning theories can illuminate the diverse learning pathways of students at MSIs and inform the design of the LLM tutor. We also asked GenAI to provide us with notifications and summaries of relevant research articles and reports from digital libraries such as JSTOR , Google Scholar , and arXiv .

As a final example, we had GenAI suggest ways to formulate and communicate the implications of our findings to audiences in information systems, education, and public policy. In all of our uses of GenAI, we routinely considered its risks, employed responsible practices, and verified the results and recommendations.

An Exciting Future

For scholars, the future of GenAI is promising. It can transform and empower our research processes by augmenting our creative activities while automating our mundane tasks. But we must understand its limits.

Innovation thrives on diverse, original thought. If we rely too heavily on GenAI, we lose the ability to make critical analyses and question information. We risk becoming “research drones” who generate fewer original ideas and breakthroughs. While GenAI can provide us with quick answers, we will acquire deep expertise only through intensive study and extensive experience. If we are to sustain vitality and progress in any business field, we must foster critical thinking and creativity even while we leverage this technology.

We also must ensure that all researchers have access to foundation models, comprehensive datasets, advanced computing power, and training and skill development opportunities. If we don’t, we risk significant inequities in the research process. Partnerships among academia, industry, and government will be vital for fostering a more inclusive environment for researchers. They will be able to solve complex problems in innovative ways with the power of their imagination and ideas.

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How regions and states can use strategic sector investments to advance supplier diversity

Subscribe to the brookings metro update, mayu takeuchi and mayu takeuchi senior research assistant - brookings metro joseph parilla joseph parilla senior fellow & director of applied research - brookings metro.

July 19, 2024

• 14 min read

Spurred in part by three significant pieces of federal legislation, the U.S. economy is experiencing an investment surge in “strategic sectors” like clean energy, semiconductors and electronics, biomanufacturing, and other advanced industries. Since 2021, companies in these sectors have announced over $525 billion in new investments, a trend that is already having an impact on the broader economy. For example, construction spending in the manufacturing sector increased by 37% in 2023, three times more than construction spending overall .

Government incentives have played a major role in shaping those private investment decisions. Take, for instance, Micron Technology’s announcement in 2022 that it will build the nation’s largest semiconductor fabrication facility , promising to create 9,000 direct jobs just outside Syracuse, N.Y., and up to $100 billion in investments over the next 20-plus years. In April, Micron signed a preliminary agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receive up to $6.14 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act. Should it reach its investment targets and state requirements, Micron could become eligible for an additional $5.5 billion in incentives from New York State.  

Government incentivizing industrial development is not new: states, for example, have been using tax breaks to attract companies for decades, and the federal government has used facility-siting decisions, contracting, research and development (R&D) partnerships and other tools—most consistently in aerospace and defense-related industries—since the Second World War. But the scale of public subsidies in this new wave of industrial policy, along with an announced intent to promote economic inclusion and revitalization, has raised new questions about what government—and the constituents it represents—should expect from companies receiving such significant taxpayer support. For example, the State of New York enacted new legislation to create the Green CHIPS Program , which established new community and environmental sustainability requirements for semiconductor companies. The policy has resulted in an evolved approach to maximize community benefits; Micron announced a joint Community Investment Framework in partnership with Empire State Development (ESD), the state’s economic development agency.

Along with commitments to workforce development, housing affordability, and community investments in childcare programs and more, the Framework articulates supplier diversity commitments, targeting 30% of eligible construction spending and 20% of ongoing eligible operation spending to businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (SEDI). By New York’s definition, SEDI businesses may include those owned by women, veterans, people of color, Indigenous people, and members of other underserved communities that have “had their access to credit…diminished as compared to others in comparable economic circumstances”; for the remainder of this paper, we refer to them collectively as “diverse-owned businesses” or “diverse suppliers”.

These targets are ambitious for a number of reasons, including, for starters, the limited pool of diverse suppliers that exist as of now. A recent analysis by the national advisory Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) found that Black-owned businesses and Hispanic- or Latino-owned businesses account for only 0.8% and 0.4%, respectively, of all businesses in the semiconductor supply chain. These extremely low shares, and the disparities they reflect in business ownership, arise from a variety of structural barriers ; these barriers include patterns of discriminatory lending , unequal access to capital (even after controlling for credit scores), and disparities in generational wealth traceable to slavery, redlining, and other exclusionary policies.

Eliminating these structural barriers and advancing supplier diversity will require intentional efforts to shift away from the status quo. Current practices—where procurement officers often rely heavily on the most familiar incumbents or invite other known suppliers to bid— hinder growth , both for the purchasing companies and for suppliers by concentrating opportunities in the hands of a few established supplier firms. Moreover, purchasers routinely impose excessive requirements on suppliers to their own detriment, as they unnecessarily shrink the pool of potential suppliers, including: requirements for unreasonable levels of past experience, expectations of excessive working capital on hand and/or bonding capacity, and thresholds that disqualify otherwise qualified suppliers simply by virtue of scale. Beyond immediate, deliberate efforts to move from these exclusionary status quo practices towards more inclusive systems, supplier diversity strategies will also require a longer-term focus on supporting the establishment and growth of new and existing diverse-owned businesses.

This is a particularly important issue for strategic sectors, whose domestic supply chains are particularly vital to the nation’s future competitiveness and security. The federal government’s intent to onshore supply chains in these strategic sectors opens new opportunities to strengthen supply chain resilience and enhance wealth-building opportunities for a broader swath of the U.S. population.

Given all these dynamics, how can states like New York shift the status quo such that new economic opportunities benefit more of the state’s diverse-owned businesses and bolster supply chain resilience? In this brief, we present three core pillars of a regional supplier diversity strategy—industry leadership, an ecosystem approach, and an enabling environment—drawing on leading examples and our latest insights on how regions can translate historic industry investments into inclusive growth. These recommendations were developed in the context of New York’s partnership with Micron, but they are relevant to a wide range of regional and state leaders working on supply chain development in strategic sectors.

Securing industry buy-in for supplier diversity efforts, particularly in the form of corporate leadership, is a critical first step

Effective, committed, and evidence-driven industry leadership is the first key pillar of any supplier diversity strategy. And indeed, there is ample evidence that is motivating new approaches to procurement and supplier sourcing. Supplier diversity initiatives—where large firms not only source from but also support the expansion of diverse suppliers—can have a range of firm-level benefits. A McKinsey analysis found that minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBE) provide their corporate partners with year-over-year cost savings of 8.5% on average, significantly higher than what most organizations realize (between 3 and 7%). Engaging diverse suppliers can also boost innovation and resilience by providing companies with access to new business networks, markets, and communities. Other studies have found that supplier diversity initiatives improve organizational performance and strengthen companies’ ability to recruit and retain skilled workers of color. Diverse suppliers tend to have more diverse employees, and supporting the growth of diverse suppliers is meaningful to workers of color—and others as well—at the purchaser firms.

What exactly does it mean for industry to “lead”? Effective supplier diversity initiatives require industry leaders to set goals related to supplier diversity, demonstrate a commitment to shifting procurement practices to help achieve those goals, and maintain dedicated staff with the right incentives and enough support to execute change. Even amid today’s more challenging climate towards diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, leading examples can be found at the Billion Dollar Roundtable , a corporate advocacy organization comprised of companies that spend $1 billion or more per year directly with diverse suppliers (this spending is assessed through a robust third-party auditing process). Bain and McKinsey , among others, have offered detailed guidance on how to implement supplier diversity strategies as well. Hundreds of major public sector buyers nationwide are likewise joining the push toward “ procurement excellence ,” and emphasizing equity goals as they remove onerous, dated and excessive requirements and other barriers that disadvantage a broad swath of potential contractor partners.

By demonstrating a genuine commitment to inclusive procurement practices, industry leaders can drive meaningful change, foster innovation, and achieve substantial economic benefits while building stronger, more resilient organizations.

Investing in the robust ecosystem required to support diverse-owned businesses is also crucial

Even if industry partners are motivated to diversify their supplier base, they may need support in sourcing and connecting with diverse suppliers. Contrary to popular notions, business success is not solely determined by the traits of the individual company. Economic evidence finds that companies do not exist in isolation, but rather enhance their competitiveness by being embedded in “clusters” of complementary firms and institutions. For potential suppliers, connecting with larger firms through these clusters can be a powerful source of growth.

In any given region, wide networks of organizations undergird these clusters to support business development. Investors, entrepreneurship support organizations, incubators, accelerators, and service providers (e.g., lawyers, accountants, realtors), among others, all serve as nodes in such networks and seek to connect business owners to knowledge, capital, physical space, business partners, and customers. Navigating this constellation of resources can be a complicated endeavor, especially as no one entity controls or governs this network in any region. Instead, business owners access the network through both formal and informal channels, and those with greater social influence and connections—who tend to be white , due to aforementioned structural barriers—often have an easier experience navigating these networks because they can rely on existing relationships to help them identify and secure relevant resources. This pattern continues to reinforce the large racial disparities in business ownership across the country.

To generate more inclusive outcomes, it will be critical to evolve how these regional networks operate and, over time, build a more inclusive business ecosystem. There are at least three main, though not mutually exclusive, pathways to achieving this more inclusive ecosystem:

• Grow locally: Identify diverse-owned businesses that are already prepared to be suppliers. These businesses are typically operating at scale (i.e., at least $1 million in annual revenue) and are poised to scale into what Next Street identifies as the “early middle market” by becoming suppliers to large buyers (e.g., large- and mid-cap corporations, universities, local and state governments, hospital systems). Note that the potential pool of relevant diverse suppliers may be wider than a cursory scan would show; suppliers may be working in one industry but have capabilities that—with the right support—could help fill gaps in strategic sectors in ways that expand the local economy. Then, to translate this potential into tangible outcomes, state agencies can work with regional economic development intermediaries and business support organizations to provide matchmaking support, creating opportunities for diverse suppliers to meet directly with purchasers. Importantly, these purchasers should put forth not only their supplier diversity representatives but also their high-level decisionmakers—who will be making procurement decisions—to meet directly with those diverse suppliers. These efforts must account for buyers’ differing levels of readiness to work with diverse-owned businesses and be designed to gradually evolve their strategic sourcing capabilities.
• Attract nonlocally: Especially in strategic sectors like semiconductors, it is likely that regions and states have supply chain gaps that cannot be addressed by only local firms. Indeed, a recent analysis by ICIC found just 250 Black- or Hispanic- or Latino-owned original equipment manufacturers or large suppliers operating anywhere in the country in the 13 key supply chains targeted by recent federal legislation; in aggregate, they represent less than 1.5 percent of all privately owned businesses in those supply chains. State governments, in tandem with industry leaders, should identify supply chain gaps that require strategic business attraction. This will likely involve targeting larger businesses (i.e., at least $20 million in annual revenue), sometimes from more distant regions but sometimes from adjacent states (for example, in a multistate industrial “supply shed” like that of the industrial Midwest or Southeast). As economic developers and industry leaders identify these supply chain gaps and pursue business attraction, they should explore and pursue opportunities to align incentives, research strategies, and selection criteria with their supplier diversity goals. These leaders may also consider facilitating joint ventures and other partnerships between out-of-state businesses and local businesses to catalyze further local growth.
• Facilitate mergers and acquisitions: Given looming retirements, regional leaders and major buyers committed to supplier diversity can advance these goals by seizing opportunities to pair retiring business owners who do not have succession plans with experienced, diverse talent. With the right introductions, tailored advising, finance, and other supports, established suppliers can transition into diverse ownership. The tradecraft is nothing new—investment funds, for example, have effectively combined these functions for decades—but can and should be put to use with greater intent and effort to support diverse business ownership. Now, as retirement cliffs threaten the future of jobs and growth in manufacturing and other industries, and at the same time as public and private investments surge in strategic sectors, proactive and intentional planning—with an eye towards diverse ownership and supply chain resilience—is more critical than ever.

Strengthen the enabling environment to sustain long-term success

The two sections above examine the two pillars of an effective regional supplier diversity strategy that directly engage small (and sometimes midsized) businesses and large corporations. However, to both actualize short-term progress and sustain long-term improvements in the business ecosystem, regional and state leaders must bolster the broader enabling environment, which includes three core components: policy, capital, and capacity.

• Ensure policies are removing unnecessary barriers. Many companies seek diverse suppliers that have been approved by state and national certification bodies. Yet under the current certification program managed by the state of New York, for example, it can take over a year for a diverse-owned business to receive certification, which can delay that business’s ability to access the resources and opportunities available only to state-certified diverse-owned businesses. State policymakers could reduce these lags by standardizing and accepting city- or county-level certifications that have faster approval times, as procurement experts Leonard Greenhalgh and James Lowry suggest in Minority Business Success . They may also look to the City of Syracuse’s recent work with Harvard’s Procurement Excellence Network, which significantly cut the local government’s certification processing time, resulting in a tripling of the city’s list of certified diverse-owned businesses. Beyond certification, some states, such as Georgia , also offer tax incentives for companies to promote supplier diversity.
• Take advantage of opportunities to secure and deploy the right kinds of capital to advance supplier diversity. A full review of the capital access landscape is beyond the scope of this piece, but there is clear alignment between the $500 million portfolio of capital programs funded through the U.S. Treasury Department’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), including some state programs’ explicit focus on diverse-owned businesses, and the pathways to invest in a more inclusive business ecosystem. In New York state, for example, the SSBCI portfolio provides products beyond venture capital; the range of funding opportunities broadens the program’s relevance for supplier diversity efforts, since suppliers often require a combination of loans, traditional equity, private equity, and revenue-based investments. And the State has already made a commitment to improving supplier diversity under SSBCI.
• Build the capacity of intermediary institutions to develop and execute an ecosystem strategy. To reap the full benefits of strategic sector investments for the regional business ecosystem, intermediaries—for example, business support organizations, chambers of commerce, or industry associations—need additional capacity to better understand major employers’ procurement spend, identify sector-specific needs and priorities, and suggest potential avenues for unbundling contracts and otherwise improving procurement practices at large procurers. This is high-touch, tailored, relational—and therefore labor intensive—region-specific work. To cite one promising example of expanding intermediary capacity: Leaders in New York have developed a new Supply Chain Activation Network (SCAN) to facilitate lasting change in the business ecosystem as part of their winning $40 million Regional Technology Hubs proposal to the U.S. Economic Development Administration. SCAN would advance a four-pronged strategy, comprised of a) expanding services at Manufacturing Extension Partnerships to support suppliers, b) establishing a purchaser roundtable to facilitate networking and matchmaking, c) developing a directory of regional semiconductor supply chain assets and needs to track growth opportunities, and d) improving processes and governmental resources to better reach and support small and diverse-owned businesses. Many of these assets are present in other states, and could be deployed for similar objectives.

As historic federal investments have spurred a “big build” across the country, regional and state leaders have a unique window of opportunity to strategically direct these investments toward diverse-owned businesses. While historically these businesses have experienced exclusion and disinvestment, dramatically expanding their participation in the supplier economy offers valuable opportunities to build wealth in disinvested communities, grow quality jobs, bolster innovation, and improve organizational and regional economic performance. By engaging industry leadership, taking an ecosystem approach, and strengthening several critical enablers, state and regional leaders and their partners can have a transformative impact.

We’d like to thank Xavier de Souza Briggs, Bibi Hidalgo, and Spencer Lau for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts.  We are also grateful to Darrin Redus and Curtis Hollis of the Cincinnati Minority Business Accelerator and Sharon Patterson of the Billion Dollar Roundtable for their advice on this topic. Finally, thanks go to colleagues at Empire State Development and CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity, who helped to inspire and sharpen this piece. CenterState CEO provides financial support to Brookings Metro through its participation in the New Industrial Policy Implementers Network. The views expressed in this report are those of its authors and do not represent the views of the donors, their officers, or employees. All remaining errors and omissions are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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