Voice in Written Work

I know that I have written the following comment on many a student work: “I can/can’t hear your voice in your writing.” Although this may sound idiosyncratic to non-composition teachers, it makes perfect sense to me. After all, students who try to write in a pseudo form of academic prose can often sound like they are “faking it.” Luckily, one of the foremost figures in composition studies agrees with me. According to Peter Elbow, “The best writing has voice: the life and rhythms of speech” (189). Without these needed “rhythms of speech”, the writing feels stilted and not representative of the student’s best work. For example, imagine if there is a composition student who wants to write an argumentative paper about abortion. Although abortion is an overdone topic, the student may be able to bring their own perspective to the paper through two different avenues. The first one is that they can show their view of the abortion debate along with the research skills in order to build a compelling argument. The second one is that they have the writing skills to communicate that argument. Without one of these, the other one cannot bring the paper to the position that it needs to be. So, if the student is writing without “the life and rhythms of speech”, this paper will come across as fake and not truly expressing what the student is meaning to say. Instead, the paper will potentially read like a regurgitated abortion debate instead of a fresh take on a fairly dead topic.

            So what can composition teachers do in order to help with increasing more voice in written work? It’s extremely simple. Show them that using their voice isn’t wrong but necessary to take a stronger responsibility to one’s work. Increasing one’s voice may make your writing more vulnerable and risky, but it can also heightened the writing and argument. Yes, “inventing the university” is still important, but so is “the life and rhythms of speech”. One just has to find the right balance between the two.

Work Cited

Elbow, Peter. “The Shifting Relationships Between Speech and Writing.” Landmark Essays on Speech and Writing. Ed. Peter Elbow. New York: Routledge, 2015. 181-200. Print.