Re Off topic: Query to Editors

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

This isn't really my field, since I'm primarily a copy editor, but I'd
incline to unambiguous first person, with a statement in the preface or
introduction or some other place up front pointing out that "pars magna
fui" of the things you relate. When you're acting as secretary, you could
start off, "Then, as I was secretary that year, I said..." or the like. I
would NOT favor typographic stunts; that sort of thing can be done in
fiction, and even can be useful in fantasy and science fiction (e.g.,
distinguishing telepathic from oral communication), but I don't consider
it appropriate in so serious a context. Fowler, commenting on the dangers
of confusing the various sense of "we," says, "Modern writers [sc. 1926]
are showing a disposition to be bolder than was formerly fashionable in
the use of I and me, and the practice deserves
encouragement."
	As for Trotsky's example, you have to remember the Marxist horror of the
"cult of the personality." A better example might be Churchill's
Second World War, of which, I blush to say, I don't have a copy to
hand, but I find a quotation from The Gathering Storm (in the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) where he unabashedly uses the
first person.
Patricia