: Help with Impersonal Past Tense 'The Report is to be presented in the “impersonal past tense” e.g. Personal – I worked in the Design Department. Impersonal – The

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Do the report as though you were merely observing others. Stick to the facts and keep your opinions out of it. Do the report as though are telling a story about someone else where you do not have a vested interest. Avoid talking about thoughts, feelings, emotions and try to write with out judgment.

There is no easy way to depersonalize an event that was very personal to you. The best way I find to evaluate is to put someone I care deeply about in and read it and see if it feels like I was too harsh on them. Then put someone i dislike in and see if it feels like i was to nice to them. If the answer is yes then I probably need to revise the report.

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In the past, I have been required to write "impersonally" by omitting all personal pronouns, etc, which was considered the proper way to write academic research papers. That sounds like the writing style that you are being asked to use.

I have found it useful to think of it as writing a series of instructions, but in the past tense. In this fashion, you are telling someone how to do what you did, without saying that you were the one who did it. Here is an example:

The task was to build a new computer program. The tools used were C++ and Visual Studio. The task was completed by creating several code files in Visual Studio and then compiling it at the command line. The code was tested thoroughly by the programmer's younger relatives at some time before dinner.

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