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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/37492
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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, revise, but is there a particular strategy for editing that I should be taking? I never really learned editing strategies other than to just...do it. Are there patterns I can look out for to avoid this _while_ writing something, so I can 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 ("I", "we") in technical reports"](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/2073/32183) 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 I found my preferred initial style is to build a narrative that mirrors how I thought about communicating a problem or figuring something out. Part of this habit comes from the perceived need to couch every scientific statement I've ever made 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](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/75913/194) and [here](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/89893/194) are concrete examples. Upon rereading, maybe these aren't so bad, but I at least _perceive_ them to overuse "I" because of their rather casual style.

Original score: 6