The present article discusses how students in the advanced EAP (English as a foreign language) writing course at a private university in Mexico City become aware of choosing different identities in a written assignment, and how this decision can help them deal with the course requirements. After addressing the issue of identity in class and carrying out activities to develop social identities, and collecting samples of their writing, the students were questioned about their decision of projecting their identities in their papers in order to find out whether the understanding of the importance of identity in academic writing and its projection in their written essays would facilitate its writing. In addition, it was deemed interesting to learn about whether they found it easier to meet the demands and conventions of that particular essay by being aware of the possibilities of constructing their identities.