A concept it's helpful to be familiar with before you begin your studies is the idea of objective and subjective perspectives.

When you are engaging with work in your discipline (whether that's books, journal articles, websites, reports, videos, podcasts or other forms of communication), you will find that the creators of the work you encounter express themselves both using strictly facts, and by stating what they believe, think or feel. These two kinds of perspective can be referred to as objective and subjective. In this context, the definitions below may be helpful:

Objective

Things that can be experienced and observed by your senses and measured in a way that can (usually) be agreed by everyone.

Subjective

Things that are experienced differently by different people and cannot be measured in a way that everyone would experience in the same way. When you are talking about experiences, ideas or beliefs that may be held by yourself or other people - they are subject to opinion

We usually write with a combination of subjective and objective language. Objective language is used to help support your claims, particularly in academic writing. Subjective language is used when we want to explain why we are making the argument we are, or how to better understand the objective observations we are communicating.

Monippally et al. (2010, p.78) talk about what readers expect of academic writing:

"Readers of academic writing expect the author to analyse empirical data (collected in many different ways and from different sources depending on the discipline), arrive at a thesis— idea or claim— and support it with evidence."

As a reader, it is important to know if what you're reading is based on the author's opinion or if it is universally true. This can help you decode the text, understand the intent of the author, and help you form your own opinions about what you're reading.

Perspective

Definition

Examples

Objective point of view

The writer gives factual information. No opinions, thoughts or feelings

Alaska is the largest state in the US

The Outsiders is a book written by S.E. Hinton

A judge finding a person guilty or not guilty

Subjective point of view

The writer gives personal opinions, feelings or thoughts

Everyone should live in Alaska

The Outsiders is a well-written book that everyone should read

The judge should not have found that person guilty or not guilty

Acknowledgements: Objective vs. Subjective POV by Katelyn Ragan licensed under CC-BY license on OER Commons

Monippally, Mathukutty M., and Badrinarayan Shankar Pawar (2010) Academic writing: a guide for management students and researchers. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qmu/detail.action?docID=543959 (Accessed: 14 June 2024).