One of the major shifts from writing essays to research papers is learning how to formalize your writing. Several genres of essays, like narratives or personal essays, employ a far more casual tone and style. The expectation for these types of essays is that you are writing from your perspective and sharing your opinions. So, it's also to be expected that you would use the word "I" quite a bit and frame the essay around your experiences.
Research writing has different conventions or expectations than essay writing. For academic research writing, the expectation is that the focus of the paper is on the ideas and the research, not the person writing the paper. So, depending on the types of papers you've written in the past, you may find yourself needing to write in a new style for this paper.
Now, since you will be writing an ethnography, parts of your paper may be more narrative in style than a traditional research paper. However, when you are writing about scholarly research, it will still be important to move into a more academic style and voice.
Academic writing has several conventions (typical traits) that you will find across disciplines and different fields.
Formal tone
Use of third-person over first-person
That doesn't mean first-person can never be used, but use sparingly. Additionally, some fields are more strict about this than others.
Focus on the research problem/thesis instead of your own opinions or experience with researching it.
Precise word choice (do not use flowery language).
Attempts to be as free from bias as possible
Use qualifiers, like "most," "seems to suggest," "some," etc. For example, this study suggests that students need to annotate online texts to read as effectively as they do print books. Or: It appears that students struggle with reading online texts effectively.
Do not make all-or-nothing statements. For example: "All students struggle with test-taking." or "No students enjoy online classes."
Do not make claims that you cannot support. Any point you are bringing up that isn't common knowledge needs to be supported by research.
Try to keep your tone free from emotion. Making emotional statements or emotional judgments on your research or points will introduce bias into your writing. For example: "It's terrible that textbooks cost so much."
Avoid exaggerations.
Many of these overlap. For example, if you avoid first-person writing, you'll likely find yourself focusing more on the ideas than your own process and opinions. Similarly, if you work on not using all-or-nothing statements, you'll also often avoid exaggerations.
Below are these conventions with examples. In order to illustrate how to write effectively in an academic writing style, I included both good and bad examples. See the right column for an evaluation of that example. A red X (✗) doesn't fit with academic style writing, and a green check (✓) is an example of how to write that same idea in an academic writing style. (So, red X is how not to do it, green check is good)
Focus on the research instead of you, as the researcher.
✗ The first article I found showed that students who read their textbooks online do not retain information as well as students who read print textbooks.
✓ Several studies suggest that students who read textbooks online do not retain information as well as students who read print textbooks.
✓ Students who read their textbooks online may not retain information as well as students who read print textbooks.
Use a formal tone
✗ Let's look at the next article that shows issues with how students read online.
✓ Another study that looked at college students who were assigned online reading found similar results.
Use first-person sparingly, if at all. Try to stick to third-person.
✗ I agree with this research because we are all online so much these days that we're used to reading fast.
✓ So, the studies show that there is a clear link that students tend to approach reading for school similar to how they approach reading online article and social media posts.
Avoid bias by using qualifiers
✗ Students read poorly online.
✓ Studies suggest that many students do not read as effectively online as they do on paper.
Avoid bias by not making all or nothing statements
✗ All students hate reading online.
✓ Additionally, students may dislike reading online.
Avoid bias by not making claims you cannot support
✗ Students would be better off if there was a completely new technology.
✓ While there may be potential solutions in the future as technology continues to evolve, there are some steps that students can take currently to read online more effectively.
Avoid bias by keeping your tone free from emotion
✗ It's terrible that textbooks cost so much. Students are miserable and going broke because of the cost. ✗
✓ Textbook cost puts a strain on students, particularly students who are lower-income or paying their own way through school. ✓
Avoid bias by avoiding exaggerations
✗ There are millions of colleges that are looking for solutions to this problem.
✓ Many colleges are looking to help students afford school by implementing open educational resources, also known as OER.
Again, some of this may not apply to ALL parts of your ethnography, but your scholarly section (and when you are writing about scholarly research) should have a more academic approach and style.