On my webpage, I warn students not to use what I call the "casual" style in their papers. I just got a submission that is an extreme, and therefor illustrative, example of what I mean. This was a recently-submitted book review; I have made up a book title to protect the student's identity:

I searched, I perused, I explored to no end, and alas I found (at least what I assumed to be at the time) the perfect book to read: Female Voices From Antiquity, by Antoin Przizhak (translated by Robert McDale). Why, may you inquire that I selected such an anomalous title? Well (as you may be familiar with) a certain paper—cough, cough research—is due in quite a short time; and as my selected topic happens to be women in classical Greece, there seemed not to be so fitting of a choice as this book. Actually, I found this title while searching the “Selected Readings” section at the back of our mighty textbook; therefore it seemed to be rather reputable. Let us begin the discussion. . .

The rest of the paper is a little better, but still infected with conversational remarks like, "if I do say so myself," or "Although I enjoy most text-book writing (which many fellow students alike deplore as boring), I couldn’t help finding this work to be overtly text-book like and stale."

That seems to be one of the big issues in student writing. Good academic writing is not about the author, but about the subject of interest to a large, scholarly audience. Many student papers have elements of this in them. The occasional use of "I" may or may not be appropriate. But unless the text is specifically autobiographical - rare in college history classes - something has gone awry when the author of the text becomes the focus.

See comments on two pro-American websites here in Europe at the ProgBlog.