Grammar girl here. You probably know what it means to write in the first person, but you

may not be as confident about using the second or third person point of view. Today we're

going to focus on each of these three points of view. In grammatical terms, first person,

second person and third person refer to personal pronouns. Each person has a different perspective,

a point of view, and the three points of view have singular and plural forms, as well as three

case forms. First, let's do first person. In the subjective case, the singular form of the first

person is I, and the plural form is we. I and we are in the subjective case because either one

can be used as the subject of a sentence, subjective subject. You constantly use these two

pronouns when you refer to yourself and when you refer to yourself with others. Here's a sentence

containing both. I, first person singular, look forward to my monthly book club meeting. We,

first person plural, are currently reading Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alta. The first

person point of view is used primarily for autobiographical writing, such as a personal essay or a

memoir. Academics and journalists usually avoid first person in the writing because doing so is

believed to make the writing sound more objective. However, using an occasional I or we can be

appropriate in formal papers and articles if a publication style allows it. Joseph M. Williams,

author of style, ten lessons in clarity and grace, agrees. He writes, quote,

Deleting an I or we does not make the science objective. It only makes reports of it seem so.

We know that behind those impersonal sentences are flesh and blood researchers doing, thinking,

and writing. Unquote. Besides I and we, other first person pronouns include me for the objective

case and mine in mine for the possessive case. Plural first person pronouns are us for the

objective case and hour and hours for the possessive case. These are a lot of forms in cases,

so the following example of a sentence that uses the first person with both singular and plural

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