Writer’s Voice and the Writing Process
Anita Chaudhuri
Key Concepts 1
- Voice is recognized as an essential component in the development of a text. Our cultural understanding, experience of historical and current social circumstances influence how we write or approach a topic. For academic writing, we develop our personal voice to express a viewpoint based on evidence to persuade readers and establish our identity as unbiased and credible.
- Identity, according to writing researchers (such as, Tang and John, 1999), is based on: (i) the expectations of a discourse community (e.g., a corporate manager or a client in the business management discourse community, a politician or a voter in the political discourse community); (ii) the genre of a text (e.g., research essays present a writer’s identity differently from an email, or an oral presentation by the same author); and (iii) our social roles (e.g., a parent-child relationship; a tourist-guide relationship).
Researchers in the field of composition studies (for example, Helms-Park & Stapleton, 2003; Matsuda & Tardy, 2007) recognize that if a writer’s voice and individual position on issues are incorporated, then the quality of writing shows personalized affects (influences and concerns). The two aspects of voice and stance also help differentiate between others’ perspectives that we share (secondary sources) and personal viewpoints. Recognizing how we can use or manipulate our voice to support an unbiased argumentative position involves critical thinking. For example, the two following statements on fake news have similar intention, but are different when you consider the criteria of voice and stance:
- Fake news is a common way to spread misinformation.
- Spread of misinformation has become common as evidenced by the number of times popular news dailies like The Washington Post and The New York Times have published items on fake news of late.
Sentence 1 notes a general correlation between fake news and misinformation. Sentence 2 suggests that readers can test the writer’s idea, which is an effective way to indicate that: (a) the argument is unbiased because it rests on observable data, and (b) the author’s voice is credible. By presenting evidence-driven arguments, writers can show diligent effort, a preferred position on the issue, and critical understanding on the topic. All of these are key components of academic integrity.
Usually, discussions on academic integrity address an institution’s policies on academic misconduct and plagiarism. Modules, quizzes, and discussions focus on textual borrowing, quotations from secondary sources, and use of style guides (works cited page and in-text citations). These are important practical aspects of incorporating (quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing) knowledge that help clarify a concept or support an argument. Stylistic features of academic writing must be included in a response or essay by following a style format, for example, APA or MLA. As evidenced so far in the discussion, academic integrity asks for more than a mechanical check on the use of quotes and style guide. Your writing should show motivation and critical engagement with learning strategies as represented in Figure 1a below.
Figure 1a. The writing process
The next section moves from this fairly straightforward representation of the writing process, as shown in Figure 1a, to look closer at how each of these aspects contribute towards an advanced understanding of ownership of writing and academic integrity.
Media Attributions
- Figure 1 © Anita Chaudhuri is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives) license
