How to be nice(r) in writing by focusing on the use of "I" and "you" and "we"
I and you are like eye contact
How the words “I”, “you”, and “we” get used in written messages reflects the ways that the writer does and the reader will perceive relationships. Many of us learned some techniques for using these words in school, like “When you __________, I feel __________” statements that help frame negative experiences and emotions. But the ways we use these words in spoken language are different from how we use them in writing. For one thing, spoken language takes turns, so each person in the conversation gets to be the “I” and the “you.” Writing doesn’t have turn taking, so the whole message is coming from “I” to “you” and the response–where the “I” and “you” switch–comes later. Because of that fact, reading someone’s written message sometimes feels like more of a lecture than a conversation.
These strategies help create more of a conversation.
You might also think of them as eye contact. When we are talking to someone, we typically look at them. Sure, we glance away every once in a while, but we know that making eye contact–connecting eye to eye–is an important part of nonverbal communication. Eye contact is so important for humans that it may even be related to how our eyes evolved: We have more white space around our eyes than many other animals and the speculation is that the big whites and smaller irises allow us to see where people are looking from further away. We can guess pretty accurately where another human’s attention is, even at a distance.
When we make eye contact with each other in conversation, we are showing that we are paying attention to the other person–watching their face and physical responses to what we are saying. Which allows us to potentially change what we are saying in real time or offer clarifications or alternatives without them having to *say* anything.
When we write, we don’t have access to the immediate response–unless we were sitting next to the person as they read our message. Which would be a little weird in most cases. (Though it can be really fun when, for example, you and a friend are both watching a horrible presentation and can text each other funny jokes during the presentation to try to get the other person to react inappropriately. I know the entertainment of this from personal experience 😭)
And since we don’t have that immediate response in front of us–that connection of eye contact–we can’t tell how much of our message the reader is actually reading/receiving. And the reader doesn’t have a lot of signals about whether the writer cares about them.
Which is why “I” and “you” become so important.
When we use “I” and “you” in speaking, we each take turns. When we write, only the writer is “I” and the reader is “you” for the duration of the message. So if the writer uses “I” all over the place, the message will feel to the reader as if it’s self-centered, narcissistic, and generally ignoring the reader. It’s like looking away from the listener for the whole conversation and not caring how they are responding to what you are saying.
When we use more “you” in our writing, we show that we as the writer *are* thinking and paying attention to the reader. Because everything in our written message is coming from the “I” perspective, so using “I” is sort of redundant. Where using “you” puts the emphasis and focus on the reader, as if the writer *is* making eye contact with them and paying attention to how they respond.
So, generally, we want to limit the use of “I” in our business writing and increase the number of “you”s.
But there are rules. Excuse me, guidelines.
Rules (Guidelines?) for using “I” in business writing
When we speak, we use “I” frequently, again because we use “I” when we are the speaker. So, we have to get used to dropping it out of our writing. Which we do pretty normally. For example, you’ve probably written to someone
“Hope you’re having a good day!”
Which has an implied “I” at the beginning: “I hope you’re having a good day!”
Which one is better? For business writing, the version without the “I” puts more emphasis on the reader and the desired outcome for them. The second version is–grammatically–about the “I” instead of about the “you”, so the focus is on what I hope rather than what “you” are going to get.
So, you can drop the “I” wherever possible in your written message to shift the focus from what “I” am thinking and feeling to what the desired outcome is for the “you”.
Here’s the “rule”:
Use “I” for actions you have taken or will take.
Avoid “I” for thoughts and feelings.
Work on deleting these from your professional writing to show you are paying more attention to the reader than yourself:
I think
I feel
I believe
I know
I’m wondering if
I’m hoping that
I’m writing
I’m emailing
I’m following up
I’m checking in on
I wanted to
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good place to start. Most of the time you can delete these phrases from the beginning of a sentence and leave in place whatever came after them. Remember, everything you write is your thoughts and feelings, so you don’t need to type that part out.
Rules (Guidelines.) for “you” in business writing
Ok, so the other side is how to use “you”. When we speak, “you” tends to be implied:
“Please fill out the form” is directed at you, but doesn’t use the word “you”. In fact, we tend to give this kind of instruction most effectively while looking at a person. In writing, you can’t make eye contact, but you can think about how to use the word “you” in writing to show you are thinking about and paying attention to the reader.
“After you review the instructions, please fill out the form”
“Please take your time filling out the form”
“Please fill out the form so that you can get x.”
I can’t change English to get a “you” into the original sentence, but I can write a slightly different sentence to get a “you” into it.
The “you” is like eye contact; it shows that I am thinking about the reader and focusing on *their* experience rather than my own.
The one problem with this is that using “you” in negative sentences will make people feel bad. It’s like pointing your finger at them, which is never nice.
So here’s the rule (ahem, guideline) for “you”:
Use the word “you” in positive or neutral sentences.
Avoid the word “you” in negative sentences.
For example, if you are writing a performance review of an employee, you will use the word “you” in the neutral parts, the statements of fact, the observations.
You have attended 32 out of 36 meetings this year. You were on time for 28 meetings.
That means you were late for 4 meetings, but according to the “rule”, the word “you” shouldn’t appear in a negative sentence, so you would NOT say
“You were late for 4 meetings.”
That’s not nice. You are pointing fingers.
Instead, you can use other techniques to focus on future behavior:
You are encouraged to attend all meetings on time in the future.
Or objective behavior:
Employees are expected to attend all meetings on time.
Or say the same thing without the “you”, which will rely on a different type of sentence structure called passive voice:
Four meetings were attended late.
Notice, though, how the sentence with the negative information doesn’t say *you* did it, just that it happened. This is a key difference in helping people understand and change their behavior. If you tell people that *they* are bad, they are less likely to change, then if you tell them that *their behavior* is bad. There is a difference. And it matters. Language matters.
And finally, the rules for “we”
The final component here is how we use the word “we”. I’ve written most of this blog post using “we” because it puts “you” the reader and “I” (me) the writer in alignment. This is the most powerful use of “we”, when it combines the “you” and the “I” into one perspective.
Often in business writing, we use “we” to mean “the company.”
We have a policy that refunds cannot be accepted after 7 days.
Or
We are working to restore your service.
This “we” is one sided. Essentially, it is working like “I” in its effect. “We” is opposed to “you”.
That kind of “we” has similar rules to “I”: for actions that we have taken or will take, not for our thoughts and feelings.
And even these sample sentences, I could revise to downplay the “we” or shift it to the 3rd person to change the emphasis (the eye contact):
Our policy is to accept refunds within 7 days.
Ok, I made several changes there including shifting to a positive sentence as opposed to a negative and changing the subject from “We” to “policy”. Can you feel the difference?
Or
Comcast’s electrical team is working to restore your service.
That one swaps out a concrete 3rd party “Comcast’s electrical team” for “we”, which removes the writer from direct contact with the action. Here, the writer is simply reporting what is happening. They are not involved in the action or its result, which can feel more objective to the reader.
But these examples still rely on “we” to refer to the company. And while that perspective *can* be useful…
The best use of “we” is to align the writer (“I”) with the reader (“you”). To do that, generally, an “I” and a “you” has to be set up or understood in the situation.
For example, when I started this blog post, I used “we” from the beginning: “Many of us”, “But the way we use these words”, “When we are talking”. The “we” perspective clearly means that you, dear reader, and I, your darling author, (Bridgerton, anyone?) share the same experience. We write in similar ways; we have conversations in similar ways. We have things in common in the ways that we communicate! And the use of “we” here shows it!
Where does this “we” work well? Often, following up on a conversation:
“We agreed that” or “When we spoke”
Or to come up with an agreement:
“Once we check our schedules, we can figure out how to move forward” and “we can both work on…”
The benefit of this “we” is that it aligns the writer and the reader on the same path, the same line of thinking, so that we are connected and in agreement. And that can be incredibly powerful for convincing a reader to behave in the way you want them to 😉