: Re: How can I stop overusing "I" in my writing? I won't edit this question, so you can see how much I use it. The current count is 3 times. I've been told that the solution is to revise, revise,

@Nickens642

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You go through piece by piece because you will want to assess each instance. Sorry. That's my answer. Someone may have an easier answer, but easy does not mean better. Look at each instance. Just do it.

Start a list of phrases to swap. i'll edit your piece and bold the edit's. This is one quick pass.

I won't edit this question, so you can see how much I use it. The
current count is 3 times. Some say the solution is to revise,
revise, revise, but is there a particular strategy for editing that one could take? I never really learned editing strategies other than
to just...do it. Are there patterns to look out for to avoid this
while writing something, to retrain myself? Are there resources
for writing less casually in the area somewhere between non-fiction
and technical writing? "When is it acceptable to use the first person
in technical reports" doesn't help, because not everything
is a technical report. It could be a comment on GitHub, an email, or
especially some of my longer Stack Exchange posts, where (deleted) my
preferred initial style is to build a narrative that (deleted) communicates a problem or figures something out. Part
of this habit comes from the perceived need to couch every scientific
statement (deleted) with some "I think-" or "Most likely"-type
language, and it seems to have pervaded my writing ever since the end
of undergrad. The result is long blocks of text that ramble too much
and contain anywhere between one "I" every two sentences to two "I"s
every sentence. Writing a science PhD dissertation did not break this
habit. Here and here are concrete examples. Upon rereading, maybe
these aren't so bad, but they seem to overuse "I"
because of their rather casual style.

Are you female? Are you young (under 30)? Here's some reporting that shows youth and gender impact use of first person pronouns.

Knowing that, and knowing that 'old white men' are generally in charge and have been historically within my culture, was enough for me to break habits I did not personally want.

If you'd like to cede your power (as an anonymous individual) in writing, you can ignore that information. When I see a post riddled with "I's" I assume youth.

If you'd like to understand trends in society, you can take the data and interpret it to your best ability, however you like, your schema, what fits your experience.

Again, those particular data were enough to help me break habits. Just do it. There are enough roadblocks up to young people. Appearing self-indulgent works against you.

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