How to write like a scientist
sciencecareers.sciencemag.org"Using the first person in your writing humanizes your work. If possible, therefore, you should avoid using the first person in your writing." Journal articles are not and should not be poetic; their aim is not to be interesting but to convey information unambiguously, including to readers for whom English is not a first language. In the one example given, his adviser was quite right; using "only" six times may be less interesting than using "lone" some of the time, but it's clearer. The list in the article is just unfunny garbage.