Voice

The question is how do we define voice in academic writing. Academic, in-class writing, such as term papers or short assignments are always bound by so many criteria,that in order to succeed, one has to follow the voice set by these criteria.To roughly define voice, one could say that it is a very private space in which the author inhabits.As Dr. Rickly was saying in class today,by taking chunks of academic writing from here and there, she managed to pool a paper which had the voice of an academic paper, and it got published.Therefore,one can conclude that there is no place for this private space in academics. I would like to say that academic writing in-general is voiceless, or rather trained to be voiceless. But as it was mentioned in class today, there is a recent shift towards voiced writing in academics. Given this premise, a teacher of composition is now faced with the concern of how much voice should be a standard for academic writing. As Elbow points out that to create voice in your writing you need to forget the audience and get it all out on the paper. Then refine it later. My question here is when you are going back to revise it, are you not losing some of that voice to conform to academic standards?

Also, a pertinent point in class today was that if freshmen, of eighteen or nineteen years of age have a well formed voice? If not, then how can/ or how well can it be reflected in their writing. Then, the concern of liking and not liking your own voice also comes into play. Most people as Elbow points out are at first not comfortable of their real voice. He does say that one grows more comfortable with time, and with lots of free writing, but sometimes writers, especially, a writer belonging to the minority culture might never feel at home with his own voice within a dominant cultural setting.This can perhaps be attributed to the lack of contact zones within the setting.

To conclude,it is important to have a voice, otherwise honesty in writing is lost,but it is also important to train that voice to meet academic criteria.