Questions About First-Person POV in Blog Posts

[Shannon Christman]

I received a rejection for writing in first person for a blog post, and I'm a bit confused about it. I understand that I should not be using personal examples, and I have not submitted several of my blog posts because I could not rework them to take out personal examples and still keep the essence of the post.

The one that I just had rejected, however, was using first-person POV mainly as a rhetorical device -- to distinguish one side of an argument from another. The writer's guidelines on blog posts seem to allow this type of use: "Blog posts are still 'articles,' but in a less-formal style and may be written in first person voice. They still must contain a beginning, middle, and end, and offer something of value to the reader." (I believe a few of my articles that used first-person this way have been accepted.) My questions are:

1. If I submitted the same post, using a fictitious name instead of "I" and "me," would the article be accepted?

2. If first-person is completely forbidden, why is it still mentioned in the writer's guidelines and why is there a separate category for blog posts?

Thanks for explaining it a bit more to me. Sorry I'm not quite getting the distinction!

[Ed]

Hi Shannon,

Please see the following for why we do not accept articles in the first person:

http://www.constant-content.com/blog/?p=90

The guidelines are in need of an update. For some reason, I thought this guideline had already been removed. Sorry for the confusion.

Ed

[Shannon Christman]

Thanks -- I'll completely avoid first-person from now on and see if I can rework the rejected article without it.

[Ed]

Super. Thank you.

[cspring]

This dialogue is helpful to me. I just rerwote a blog entry to make it non-first-person POV and resubmitted the piece today. Hope it will be accepted this time.

[cspring]

Good news! I revised my blog entry so it's no longer first person POV, and submitted it again. It is now accepted and posted on the site. Thank you for the extra work, Editors.
Ref. The blog title is "Looking to Reform Wall Street After Eliot Spitzer?..."