Writing in 3rd Person The way you put together the material you gather for written assignments will be unique: no-one else will do it in quite the same way. This is especially true in the social sciences and humanities fields, where there is a lot more scope for interpretation than other more ‘fixed’ disciplines such as anatomy or tax law. The emphasis in most university units is on the gathering and synthesis of material from authoritative sources, not on giving your personal opinion (since most people need to learn how to research and think critically, but no-one really needs to be taught how to have an opinion!). This means your opinion has to be supported by the evidence and the material created by other scholars. When you come to write the ideas that you have, you need to be able to show where those ideas have come from, and why they are important. One way that you can show you are thinking analytically, and not just giving your opinion, is by ensuring you use the third person voice in academic assignments (unless otherwise instructed). Try Googling for help with grammar if you’re not 100% clear on the differences between third person and second person when writing. Don’t forget to check out the Glossary for an easy explanation of first and third person. The following video explores how and why to write in third person. It also presents a number of practical examples.