Using our own experience in academic writing

While there is a place for personal experiences in writing up research, often in an introduction section - for explaining why a particular issue has sparked a research question, or why we have a need to dig into a situation - in places other than that, drawing on our own experience is generally frowned upon (Tripartio, 2017). I have written about this before - here - but there is always more to say.

So why we should hesitate in using our own experience in academic writing? Well, unless we are well-published researchers, we cannot use our own opinion, because we simply do not have the depth of academic scholarship - and a scholarly reputation for doing so. Someone like Mary McMahon does. Or Dale Furbish. Or Mark Savickas.

Further, we cannot use our 'belief'. This is because belief is underpinned by faith, not by evidence, and faith has no place - other than emotional support - in academic writing. We need to instead be the objective observer, seeking expert evidence via our research and we cite, and reference, to draw on those experts. We underpin. We build foundations on the shoulders of giants.

We all have our own "personal experiences and [our own] ways to interpret them" (Tripartio, 2017). Any of us - given enough writing skill for the channel we are writing for - can write an opinion piece, but this is not academic writing. Journalistic writing is rhetorical writing (Sheilds, 2012). Academic writing is analytical writing (Sheilds, 2012), and is "Formal and unbiased; clear and precise; focused and well-structured; well-sourced; correct and consistent" (Scribbr, 2023). Academic writing aims for objectivity, taking "a disinterested third-party perspective", "and critical (takes nothing at face value, but tries to dig under the surface to understand what is really going on from multiple non-obvious perspectives)" (Tripartio, 2017). It is difficult to mesh academic writing with our own experience, because we are inherently biased. We are generally "not objective (by definition) and all too often, [...] insufficiently critical" (Tripartio, 2017). It takes a lot of training and research to be able to become sufficiently objective and critical. 

However, we can make our personal experiences useful if we can determine "What makes my personal experience more outstanding than other random personal experiences related to this phenomenon?" (Tripartio, 2017).  If, on reflection, our experiences will not add value, then we should discard them, as "such a mention would weaken an otherwise strong academic argument. But if [they are] unique or original (e.g., the entire study is propelled by the fact that the writer's personal experiences contradict the dominant scholarly discourse), then [they are] definitely worth mentioning" (Tripartio, 2017). We can see how this is useful in an introduction to an article or piece of assessed work, providing we describe our "experience as objectively as possible and [are] critical in not accepting [our] own interpretations of [our] experience at face value. When presented properly, such personal experiences can strengthen the credibility of the writer" (Tripartio, 2017). 

Finally, we cannot use our "personal experiences as part of [our] 'literature'" (Tripartio, 2017) in our literature review. The literature review should be complete for the "field under study", and repeatable by a later researcher, and based on peer-reviewed, scholarly, published works (Lavallée et al., 2014). Our own experience is anecdotal which has not gone through the rigour of a peer review process. 

Otherwise we are going to get the reviewer comment, "Author, where is your evidence?"

Sam

References:

Lavallée, M., Robillard, P.-N. & Mirsalari, R. (2014). Performing systematic literature reviews with novices: An iterative approach. IEEE Transactions on Education, 57(3), 175-181. https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2013.2292570

Scribbr. (2023). What Is Academic Writing? | Dos and Don’ts for Students. https://www.scribbr.com/category/academic-writing/

Shields, T. (2012, April 12). What's the difference between academic and journalistic writing?. Writing Stack Exchange. https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/5433/whats-the-difference-between-academic-and-journalistic-writing

Tripartio. (2017, March 28). Is it okay to discuss personal experiences or observations in literature review? [answering ssjjaca's query]. Academia. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87199/is-it-okay-to-discuss-personal-experiences-or-observations-in-literature-review#87277