RWUwriter

I am doing a research paper/analysis on Autism for my psychology class, but I am incorporating my past experience with autistic people in it. How could I use examples from my past experiences in the paper without using "I"? Any kind of advice would be appreciated.

duston

Just treat them as case files.

Let's say you wanted to talk about how you once met an austic person who had aspergers, and wanted to highlight what makes it different from typical cases of autism. You'd start by giving a brief description of what you're going to talk about, then begin giving an anonymous anecdote.

As it happens I used to volunteer at a school for autistic children, so I might write, "It is common for people suffering from aspergers to develop a physical aversion to certain, particularly tactile, objects. For example in the case of a child at an autistic institute, who..."

Truth-Teller

Yes, think of it as third person narrative.

spider8

I think you should show this is your own experiences rather than some knowledge you've acquired. If you are confident that your experiences have given you correct opinions then fine. If you distrust other peoples belief in your comptetence don't use 'I', though I think this would be rather unfair.

jewellz

I don't think using "I" at all would be acceptable for a psych class. (Having taken MANY myself...) I'm assuming his paper is required to be in APA format, which means that it can't be in first person. Duston has good advice, though - just treat it as a case study. You can detail the information you have gathered pretty easily without speaking in first person.

jewellz

Hmm.. I think I actually may have misunderstood the initial question. I was thinking you had a body of work that you had researched or something. But here's my two cents, for what they're worth. I'm not altogether sure that it would be appropriate to include your personal experience in a research paper. I'm assuming your personal experience was subjective in nature, and not actual research that you have conducted? Is this a requirement for the paper? What kind of class is this - university level? If the professor has requested that you include personal information in the paper, it would probably be most appropriate for you to ask him or her what is expected, because your instructor may be deviating from APA format for the assignment or something. Hope I helped a little?

Harfish

For my law essay I had to write earlier this year I asked this question and was told that there was no rule against using the word "I". In fact my final paragraph was about my own personal experience in Afghanista.

Amara-J

Heh. I belong to the "No I" school, and I did my own essays in APA style too. But since it looks like there may be exceptions, why not ask your professor / teacher directly? He / she will be usually quite happy to help. Better to get a definite understanding than asking our subjective opinions on this forum, no offense meant.

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