First - firstly

From Hull AWE
Jump to: navigation, search

[Peter Wilson], the founder of the AWE project, wrote, about 2005:

"In academic writing, there is a prejudice against the word firstly. Indeed, a schoolteacher once told me that there is no such word in the English language. He was wrong. Obviously there is. I have just used it, and you understood me. I am not the first to have used it.
However, it is true that many academics prefer to see adverbial counting in the form First, secondly, thirdly etc. If you are counting your paragraphs (or points) with adverbs like this, use these words. Do not, for these readers, count firstly, secondly, thirdly - however much more logical it looks. What has idiom got to do with logic?
Follow the prejudices of the audience for whom you are writing."

This remains good advice, even if AWE has abandoned the personal style of writing in which Mr Wilson expressed his personal opinion and history ("I").