Is concurrent first person / third person usage absolutely unacceptable?
Background: My understanding about first person / third person is this: choose a voice and maintain it throughout the piece. However, when writing marketing-type information, I find myself switching back and forth between 1st ("we", "our") and 3rd ("ABC Organization", "The Organization"). I like to use 1st person because it feels personal and informal, but using third person allows me to (a) avoid sounding like I am bragging[1], (b) reconnect the reader with our name, and (c) speak about our historical activities -- the "we" now were not part of the "we" in 1980. (When I do this, I don't ever call the organization "it" and then switch back to "we" or "our")
The question is: Is it absolutely unacceptable to do this? Is this a matter of opinion, or a generally accepted rule among writers?
Examples:
- ABC is in the process of expanding our monitoring and evaluation plan.
- ABC is a relief and development organization established in 1973. Our mission is to...
[1] Saying "we do this awesome thing" and "we completed this awesome project" too often conveys an arrogant mentality.
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1 answer
While I'm usually fanatic about number agreement (like not using "they" as a gender-netural third-person-singular pronoun in English), Example #1 actually doesn't bother me. I think it's because I'm reading "ABC" as a collective noun, referring to all the staffers (who are the ones who actually have the opinions, did the deeds, and won the awards).
"ABC is expanding our mission" is sort of short for "ABC's executives, staff members, and volunteers are expanding the mission of the organization." Otherwise you start running into the Rufus Xavier Sasparilla problem. [The link is to a "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoon short explaining what pronouns are and how they are useful, using the example of three people with extremely long names.]
I edit a lot of business copy, and I see the "ABC is expanding our mission" construction all the time, so it wouldn't make me blink.
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