This one?

First of all, I wasn't quite sure where this should go, so any mods should feel free to move or delete this if it's in the wrong place.

But, now to the actual question. Part of the criteria of a paper I'm writing is that it doesn't include first or second-person nouns or pronouns, and I was wondering if referring to yourself as "this one" or even just "one" would be a grammatically correct third-person substitute for those.

And is case you are wondering, here is an example of how I used it in text. "This one is willing to wager one’s life that not one person in this room knows what it is like to live with schizophrenia."

You could say "the author" or "your lord and master".

Although I think (this is just a guess) that the purpose of such assignments is to teach you to write without referring to yourself excessively, not to see how good you are at doing just that even when denied some words.

(This IS for school, right? Because I did things like that for school. Made no sense back then, I just knew that nobody talks like that.)

Aye, its for school. And it's more of a theoretical thing now, since the question has moved from being motivated out of spite to being motivated by curiosity, since I have not been able to find a decent answer on the interwebs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DoctorFaust

"This one is willing to wager one’s life that not one person in this room knows what it is like to live with schizophrenia."

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No, that's not something you want to do in a formal paper. As Tiiba said, the idea is for you not to refer to yourself. Furthermore, "this one" is a very weird and non idiomatic phrase. It's grammatically correct, but it will break the flow of the paper, which is bad. Actually, without any indication of what "one" refers to, it may not even be grammatical.

What is the context for this sentence, by the way? Is it essential that you make this point for the paper? You should probably just point out that "a person without schizophrenia cannot understand the life of a person with this disease." That would be saying essentially the same thing, but in a more formal way.

If you need to include personal experience or personal opinions in your essay, use I. If you are required to not use any first- or second-person pronouns in your essay, it's likely that personal experience and opinions are not a valid addition to your paper. Instead, separate your statement from a place of opinion. That entire sentence, even ignoring the use of "this one," is not structured in a manner conducive to an academic paper. For more specific advice, I would suggest citing some factual information about the statistical prevalence of schizophrenia and note that most people don't know what it's like to live with schizophrenia. Your word is meaningless in an academic paper. Additionally, your sentence is both not grounded in fact and potentially alienating to your reader. If your reader is schizophrenic, how do you think they'll feel about the assumption that they don't know what it's like to be schizophrenic? In general, avoid assumptions and generalizations entirely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoblinArchmage

No, that's not something you want to do in a formal paper. As Tiiba said, the idea is for you not to refer to yourself. Furthermore, "this one" is a very weird and non idiomatic phrase. It's grammatically correct, but it will break the flow of the paper, which is bad. Actually, without any indication of what "one" refers to, it may not even be grammatical.

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Grammatical, but bad. Pretty much the answer I was looking for. Thanks!