: Re: 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

@Cooney417

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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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