j.walczak1
New member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2018
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- United States
- Current Location
- United States
Greetings one and all!
I am in the process of writing a rather significant amount of text for a website and I have something of a burning issue that I need resolved. If I have posted this in the wrong category, please forgive me and please feel free to move it appropriately. Likewise, it's been a few years since I took College Comp I & II, so please forgive any grammar mistakes in my writing here...for better or worse, I tend to write the way that I talk and like many, I spend WAY too much time on "social media".
Alrighty...my name is Jim, I'm a digital artist (among other things) and with the help of my wife (who's a programmer), I'm the process of building a new online portfolio for my work. Along with examples of my artwork (obviously), many of the pages are going to include links to "Info Pages" to explain what the viewer is actually looking at (when the work was created, how it was created, why it was created, etc.). Until now, I have been writing these info pages in the third person. With the exception of my "Artist's Statement" page, where I directly address my audience, instead of referring to myself as "I", I have thus far referred to myself as "the artist". For example, I'll write something along the lines of "The work seen on this particular page represents the artist's earliest efforts..." or "This particular page represents the artist's great affection for the Renaissance period..." - you get the idea. My reasoning here is that a potential viewer doesn't really know who actually created the website, let alone who wrote the text and thus, who's actually doing the "speaking". My wife, who's doing all my proof reading, as well as the coding for this website and is a college graduate herself (she excelled in Advanced Writing in college)...has had something of a small aneurysm over this. She feels I should be addressing the audience directly. While I do trust and value my wife's opinion, I did pretty well in writing classes myself and the way I'm doing this feels more natural, if not more professional to me.
By the way...for what it's worth, this website will be used for both of our portfolios once completed (my art work and her programming work) - the biggest reason for the tension on this.
So before I go to the trouble of editing or re-writing some 20+ pages of text (not that I actually will), which is actually the PROPER way to do this? Is it acceptable to refer to myself in the third person as I have described here or would a re-write be more appropriate? My wife and I are already butting heads over a number of other issues regarding this project (hey...artist vs. programmer...go figure) and we're both rather strong-willed individuals, so I could really use an expert opinion on this.
I thank you for your time, patience and experience - I'm grateful!
I am in the process of writing a rather significant amount of text for a website and I have something of a burning issue that I need resolved. If I have posted this in the wrong category, please forgive me and please feel free to move it appropriately. Likewise, it's been a few years since I took College Comp I & II, so please forgive any grammar mistakes in my writing here...for better or worse, I tend to write the way that I talk and like many, I spend WAY too much time on "social media".
Alrighty...my name is Jim, I'm a digital artist (among other things) and with the help of my wife (who's a programmer), I'm the process of building a new online portfolio for my work. Along with examples of my artwork (obviously), many of the pages are going to include links to "Info Pages" to explain what the viewer is actually looking at (when the work was created, how it was created, why it was created, etc.). Until now, I have been writing these info pages in the third person. With the exception of my "Artist's Statement" page, where I directly address my audience, instead of referring to myself as "I", I have thus far referred to myself as "the artist". For example, I'll write something along the lines of "The work seen on this particular page represents the artist's earliest efforts..." or "This particular page represents the artist's great affection for the Renaissance period..." - you get the idea. My reasoning here is that a potential viewer doesn't really know who actually created the website, let alone who wrote the text and thus, who's actually doing the "speaking". My wife, who's doing all my proof reading, as well as the coding for this website and is a college graduate herself (she excelled in Advanced Writing in college)...has had something of a small aneurysm over this. She feels I should be addressing the audience directly. While I do trust and value my wife's opinion, I did pretty well in writing classes myself and the way I'm doing this feels more natural, if not more professional to me.
By the way...for what it's worth, this website will be used for both of our portfolios once completed (my art work and her programming work) - the biggest reason for the tension on this.
So before I go to the trouble of editing or re-writing some 20+ pages of text (not that I actually will), which is actually the PROPER way to do this? Is it acceptable to refer to myself in the third person as I have described here or would a re-write be more appropriate? My wife and I are already butting heads over a number of other issues regarding this project (hey...artist vs. programmer...go figure) and we're both rather strong-willed individuals, so I could really use an expert opinion on this.
I thank you for your time, patience and experience - I'm grateful!
