Short answer: Why on earth shouldn’t you?

Long answer:

Some of you may remember in-class discussions about the English progressive construction, where I argued, in a nutshell, that it is silly to assume that you can teach people when to use progressives and when not to based on so-called triggers like yesterday or usually or the type of verb. She was loving every minute of it is perfect English. What you need to do is ask yourself what the function of the progressive construction is, describe it accurately, and then teach learners the form along with its function(s). In language teaching, mechanistic shortcuts that ignore function just do not work in the long run, and they don’t really make anyone’s life easier, whatever people’s hopes may be.

The same applies to passives and the pronoun I. Don’t ask whether you are allowed to use passives in this or that genre with this or that lecturer, ask instead what a passive construction does and whether you want it. Don’t ask whether a specific pronoun is banned or not, think about its functions. Apparently, there are people who teach students that I should be avoided in general, but this is one of those mechanistic shortcuts that does not, in the end, teach people the real point. In a sentence like (1), I is perfectly fine; in fact, anything else (e.g. a passive) would be misleading, since it is vital to know that it is the author’s practice that is being described, not general practice. What we don’t want, and this is probably what people mean when they say “don’t use I”, is information as in (2), which is irrelevant to an academic readership.

1. I use the term indirect object to refer to the second non-PP verbal argument in linear order, in opposition to oblique object, by which I mean an object in the shape of a prepositional phrase. (constructed example, based on a true story 🙂 )
2. I decided to write this paper on Indian English because, when I was five years old, my parents and I spent three years in… (from a term paper, adapted)

(This takes us to another misconception. When essay writing coaches say that it is a good idea to state why you find a specific topic interesting, what they mean (I hope) is that it can’t hurt to explain the significance of your findings or conclusions to the linguistic community. What they hopefully didn’t mean to suggest is that your lecturer wants to read about how you personally came to study English. No offence, but you yourself are just not relevant. 🙂 Nor do you have space to waste.)

Back on topic. What is the function of passive constructions? Passive constructions topicalise the patient by omitting the agent or introducing them later in the clause, in which case the agent is in focus. There can be various reasons for wanting to do this. In (3) below, a scientific concept is introduced by a reference to a seminal paper. Mentioning the subject matter first and the author at the end of the clause makes it possible to link the clause to the previous discourse (this is about case grammar) and to what follows (the author is taken up as the topic of the ensuing relative clause). Passive constructions like the one in (4) should indeed be avoided, because they are ambiguous with respect to who the agent is (in this case, whether the author is using the OED’s semantic categories or her own).

3. Case grammar is a linguistic theory that stresses the importance of semantic roles in an effort to make explicit the basic meaning relationships in a sentence. Case grammar was developed in the 1960s by American linguist Charles J. Fillmore, who viewed it as a “substantive modification to the theory of transformational grammar” (“The Case for Case,” 1968). (Nordquist, Richard. 2016. “case grammar”. https://www.thoughtco.com/case-grammar-linguistic-theory-1689744, accessed 26 June 2017)
4. The words are categorized semantically. (from a term paper, adapted)

So, long story short: Please decide for yourselves.

This is a hyphen: -
We use it in compounds like faint-hearted or pre-recorded. In German it is called Bindestrich or Viertelgeviertstrich.

This is an n-dash: –
It’s so called because it has the length of the letter n. In German they call it Halbgeviertstrich or simply Gedankenstrich, and it is used together with spaces to mark breaks in sentences. Wikipedia says (under “Halbgeviertstrich”):

In Appositionen, bei Parenthesen und erklärenden Einschüben – etwa in diesem Beispiel – kann der Gedankenstrich das Komma oder die Klammer als Satzzeichen ersetzen.

In English, the n-dash indicates spans such as time or page ranges, as in this example (from Wikipedia, under “n-dash”):

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was fought in western Pennsylvania and along the present US-Canada border (Edwards, pp. 81–101).

This is an m-dash: —
It’s so called because it has the length of the letter m. In German, they call it Geviertstrich, but it is rarely used. In English, the m-dash is regularly used, without spaces, where the n-dash (with spaces) is used in German:

the fire drill—it was chaos

Got it?

Im Englischen kann man, ebenso wie im Deutschen, attributive Adjektive, auch wenn sie Partizipien sind, mit Adverbien modifizieren:


# Query: BNC; [pos="AT0"][pos="AV0"][pos="VVN"][pos="N.*"]::match.text_genre="W:ac.*";
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
72543771: to play . ( n contrast both to [[[ the genetically based view ]]] of literary
58651450: hristians under Ottoman rule . [[[ The newly enthroned Tsar ]]] Nicholas I
26334781: ill and knowledge . He accepts [[[ the widely held view ]]] that the
89949649: ty . Alveolar lymphocytosis is [[[ a well recognised feature ]]] of other
18753338: o finding possible referents , [[[ a fully resolved LF ]]] which is
54231140: sed the opinion , supported by [[[ a carefully researched argument ]]] , that the
59179205: ype III domain encoded between [[[ the previously identified type ]]] III repeats
38783431: lf when I went as a visitor to [[[ a beautifully equipped laboratory ]]] to work
18012693: ndardized interview as used in [[[ a carefully conducted sample ]]] survey is
43300094: e established that captopril , [[[ a well known angiotensin ]]] converting enzyme
55653059: ned before . Although there is [[[ a well developed theory ]]] of how
88049224: nancy Abstract Coagulopathy is [[[ a well recognised complication ]]] of peritoneovenous
[...]


Das funktioniert aber nicht mit allen Partizipien gleich gut, und die Adverbien sind meist Intensifiers oder Downtoners (highly, deeply, carefully, …), seltener Raum-/Zeitadverbien wie newly oder previously. Präpositionaladverbien kommen so gut wie nicht vor; eine Suche nach already, above, before, afore und earlier im BNC ergibt nur drei Treffer:


# Query: BNC; [pos="AT0"][word="already|above|before|afore|earlier"][pos="VVN"][pos="N.*"]::match.text_genre="W:ac.*";
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
38665095: . Finally , the crisis killed [[[ the already enfeebled Dreikaiserbund ]]] . The
59288442: howing that point mutations in [[[ the afore mentioned elements ]]] resulted in
85176940: introduced to be " added " to [[[ an already identified subject ]]] thus has


Die Möglichkeiten sind sehr viel eingeschränkter als im Deutschen. Konstruktionen wie "the later analyzed synonyms" oder "the below quoted example" sind äußerst unidiomatisch; "an already identified subject" geht, "the already identified subject" ist schon deutlich schlechter. Natürlich gibt es das schöne Adjektiv aforementioned, aber es ist eben ein (univerbiertes) Adjektiv, keine Phrase.

Ich warte noch darauf, dass jemand eine (sprachvergleichende?) Hausarbeit zu diesem Muster schreibt. In der Zwischenzeit gehen Sie bitte auf Nummer sicher und verwenden Sie nachgestellte Adjektive:


# Size: 291 intervals/matches
[...]
# Query: BNC; [pos="AT0"][][word="mentioned|quoted|cited|discussed"][word="already|above|before|afore|earlier"];
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
56000166: ’ . This provision overcomes [[[ the difficulty mentioned above ]]] that where
24796596: indeed been sent to prison for [[[ the offence mentioned above ]]] , and my
58998124: several hospitals . In view of [[[ the factors discussed above ]]] it is most
19208498: ze and how active you are , so [[[ the figures quoted above ]]] should be
104541276: ng verse ) . 14.2 Assimilation [[[ The device mentioned earlier ]]] that produces
1334677: uitively . John Bayley , after [[[ the remark quoted above ]]] , goes on to
104527184: e the syllable it relates to ; [[[ the words quoted above ]]] will thus
70690852: arate species , except perhaps [[[ the features mentioned above ]]] but this
18756817: to suffer from inaccuracies of [[[ the type discussed above ]]] . Again , we
22070827: o line , let us review some of [[[ the factors mentioned earlier ]]] . There is
96961433: has been largely superseded by [[[ the drugs mentioned above ]]] . For maximum
46766802: hich minister to that public , [[[ the works cited above ]]] might never
[...]