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Scholarly Voice: Point of View

Basics

Personal pronouns are used to indicate point of view in most types of writing. Here are some common points of view:

  • A paper using first-person point of view uses pronouns such as "I," "me," "we," and "us."
  • A paper using second-person point of view uses the pronoun "you."
  • A paper using third-person point of view uses pronouns such as "he," "she," "it," "they," "him," "her," "his," and "them."

In scholarly writing, first-person and third-person point of view are common, but second-person point of view is not. Read more about appropriate points of view on the following pages: