This paper considers different styles of authorial presence in linguistic and philosophical writings and looks in particular at personal pronouns in French which are regularly used to indicate the first person. Academic texts are analysed in philosophy and linguistics, showing that philosophical papers prefer a universalist stance, while linguistic papers choose less formal styles of self-reference, giving a personal or neutral flavour to the writing. The study shows how a sensitive analysis of a few pronominal choices can reveal genre differences that would be difficult to explain without the evidence.