Summary Of Dare We Say I By Ruth Behar

Ever since we were in elementary school when we learned about essays, and how they are actually longer than a paragraph, we were taught to absolutely never, under the punishment of death, use a first person word such as “I”, “me”, or “my” on any scholarly essay or paper (unless we were allowed to by the gods of English). All joking aside, this was an extremely serious rule, one that would seriously affect our grades were we not to follow it. However, as with many rules, people began to question them, and to argue as to why we still follow such an antiquated rule as that, and Ruth Behar’s article “Dare We Say “I”” intends to explore this idea.

To summarize her article and ideas, Behar stems from the belief that imparting a more personal language allows for the use of personal facts and information to truly enrich scholarly writings. She explains this idea by employing examples of books and publications she has deeply analyzed first-hand, and explaining how their use of personal language and anecdotes have furthered the authors’ points and arguments, ending the article with the idea that such a writing style is perhaps not as deplorable as our high school and elementary teachers may have had us believe.
Why should I listen to her over Ms. Berry from my English class? In fact, there is some weight to her claims; Analyzing the structure and content of her article proves she writes from deep intellectual thought, not only the fact that this is a scholarly article (much like the previous two readings) but also the recognition and validity of some of the examples she uses also add weight to her claims. Similarly, the elevated and complex language she uses provides another level of depth that one could analyze to see that her claims are quite legitimate, along with the logical flow of examples and points she makes through her