First, second and third person (3)

If clear writing is your goal, always strive to be consistent in your use of grammatical person (first, second and third person). In other words, when you begin a passage in one person (first, second or third), stay in that person until the end of the passage (sentence, paragraph or several paragraphs).

If you change person within the passage, you risk confusing your readers. The shorter the passage, the greater the risk. That’s because the shorter the passage, the more unexpected the change.

Example of a change of grammatical person

An example of a change of person within a single sentence appeared last Friday in the Telegraph (UK). The newspaper carried an article titled, “How you write ‘shows if you’re a liar,’ scientists discover,” which begins with a one-sentence paragraph:

“Instead of analysing body language or eye movement, to catch out people telling fibs, people’s handwriting can instead give them away.”

Most readers, when encountering the phrase, “to catch out people telling fibs,” are likely to expect an imperative-mood verb. The implied subject of an imperative is always second person (you). So the reader expects something like this:

Instead of analysing body language or eye movement, to catch out people telling fibs, just analyse their handwriting for tell-tale strokes.

But in the article, the subject (handwriting) and the verb (can) are third person.

Alternatively, some readers may expect third person, as in:

Instead of analysing body language or eye movement, to catch out people telling fibs, some bankers, insurance brokers and police detectives are beginning to analyse their handwriting for tell-tale strokes.

In this case, there is no change of person; readers expect third person, and the clause is in third person. However, the readers expect the subject to be the people who are analyzing handwriting, not the people whose handwriting is being analyzed.

The Takeaway: When you begin a passage in one grammatical person (first, second or third person), stay in that person until the end of the passage. If you change person, you risk confusing your readers. Review the pronoun section in your grammar book; learn first person, second person and third person so thoroughly that you will jar yourself awake whenever you accidentally switch person.

First, second and third person (1)
First, second and third person (2)