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I am making a tutorial video on a programming language. During the video I want to ask questions to the audience.

My confusion is between 2 words: "I" or "you".

Let's see few examples.

After explaining something in the video I say

Q 1: So, how am I going to do this. Any idea?

or should I say

Q 1: So, how you gonna do this. Any idea?

Q 2: What if you want to update the value of an element at a ... in the ...?

or should I say

Q 2: What if I want to update the value of an element at a ... in the ...?

Q 3: Now think about this and tell me. What happens if I do this?

or should I say

Q 3: Now think about this and tell me. What happens if you do this?

Q 4: What if I want to know the total number of elements in a ...?

or should I say

Q 4: What if you want to know the total number of elements in a ...?

Q 5: What’s the use of this ... method. I mean where do I have to use it?

or should I say

Q 5: What’s the use of this ... method. I mean where do you have to use it?

See my confusion. Should it be "I" or "you"?

Laurel
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Pirzada
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2 Answers2

4

I recommend not asking rhetorical questions like this at all. You already know the answer, so asking runs the risk of reminding the listener/viewer that this is not a spontaneous conversation between friends, but is in fact a planned lecture. This is especially true of phrasing like "tell me" which they cannot do because they are watching a pre-recorded video.

Instead of "what if I/you want to x?" you can start your section with "sometimes, I/you want to x" instead. If you are going to show them how to update the thingy, there's nothing wrong with saying "I am going to show you how to update the thingy" rather than "what if you want to update the thingy? I'll show you how."

But even setting aside the issue of asking rhetorical questions, the pronoun issue (I? you? we?) remains. I don't use just one pronoun all the time.

  • If I'm going to show them how to do something, or I'm going to do something, I never say "we". "We" are not going to read a file or reverse a string in place. I am going to show you how to do it, but we are not doing it.
  • If somebody is going to want to X, or need a Y, or prefer a Z, then any pronoun will do. "Sometimes you want these in alphabetical order" is fine, so is "Sometimes I want these" and yes, occasionally "we" though it might not be heard as "me and you" but instead as "me and my colleagues who you hope to join by learning this language/library/technique".
  • Try not to tell them "you can see this is simpler/faster/shorter" -- perhaps they can't. Just tell them it's simpler/faster/shorter. No pronouns, and no excluding people who don't automatically see that.
  • You may occasionally toss in a "you may be wondering" -- say, after a long list of functions that look pretty similar -- but I prefer a vaguer "some people react to this list by wondering ... " since again it doesn't exclude those who were not wondering any such thing.

I very much adopt a tone of sitting next to the person and explaining it to them. I do so with very little use of the word "we" though. We're not writing the code together. I'm showing them how to write it. They don't get to type. Pretending otherwise doesn't feel honest to me.

And of course, if I ask them to stop the video and go write some code of their own or try some particular changes and tweaks, I use plenty of "you" when giving them those instructions!

Kate Gregory
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'We' is a better choice.

'You' places you on a teaching pedestal, with the watchers being placed at a distance. It is almost as if you want to remind them of their ignorance: they don't know the answer while you do.

'I' is narcissistic. You already know the answer, why would you ask yourself such a trivial question when making a video to help someone else?

'We' is inclusive. You create an empathic link with the watchers, you sit at the desk with them and solve the problem together.

NofP
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