Finding Your Voice as an Academic Writer

1. FINDING YOUR VOICE
AS AN ACADEMIC
WRITER
BIKASH CHANDRATALY
PhD student in English Language
Universiti Putra Malaysia
bikashchandrataly@gmail.com

2. ACADEMIC WRITING
 Academic writing is different from other forms of writing is in its relationship with its audience.
 Reader is one of writer’s lecturers or tutors. The reader will be concerned with whether the piece
of writing has reached a certain standard and will use those standards to judge the quality of the
writing.
In the context of academic writing being critical includes:
-Showing an understanding and knowledge of theory
_ demonstrating an awareness of what has been written or said about the subject
_ taking into consideration different points of view
_ using reason to make a judgement
_ not accepting ideas until they have been examined closely (and then maybe rejecting them)
_ coming to your own conclusions
_ using your own voice.
You might think this looks like a tall order, but hopefully there is nothing in the list that you would
disagree with.

3. BLOOM’S (1956) TAXONOMY OF LEARNING
1 Knowledge – the recall of facts
2 Comprehension – rephrasing what has been understood
3 Application – applying new knowledge to a situation
4 Analysis – breaking information down
5 Synthesis – putting the parts together to create meaning
6 Evaluation – deciding on the worth of something
How are these terms useful when you are trying to understand the task you have been
given? They can be translated into essay titles as follows.

4. BLOOM’S (1956) TAXONOMY OF LEARNING
Sample titles for essays about the World Wide Web
Knowledge – Describe the history of the World Wide Web.
A simple account is required, tracing a timeline and detailing facts.
Comprehension – What effect has the World Wide Web had on the way people communicate?
The writer needs to show an understanding of cause and effect in this answer.
Application – Explain how the World Wide Web works.
The writer must use knowledge of the system to demonstrate how it works in practice.
Analysis – How have methods of communication changed since the development of the WWW?
Comparisons must be drawn, methods must be defined and examined in detail.
Synthesis – How could the World Wide Web be used to develop new ways of learning?
This essay calls for the writer to bring together ideas to create fresh understanding.
Evaluation – Comment on the value of the World Wide Web for society.
The writer must stand back from the subject and make a judgement.

5. BLOOM’S (1956) TAXONOMY OF LEARNING
"The student's ability to use correctly and effectively the language appropriate to the
assignment." What this means is that no matter how well-chosen your topic, how
well-researched your information, how innovative your ideas, or how brilliant your
understanding of the material, your grade will suffer if you cannot convey all that to
a reader through a well-organized, clearly written paper.
• Writing is an expression of your thoughts. If your writing isn't clear, a professor
may assume that your thinking wasn't clear on that topic either.

6. GENRES OF WRITING
Different types of academic writing are known as genres. They have distinct purposes, forms
and recognized structures. Common examples are essays, reports, case studies and projects.
Although certain genres seem more suited to certain disciplines than others. The clue to this
will be in your assignment brief, and it is worth spending time to make sure you know exactly
what type of writing you have got to produce. Whatever the genre, there are certain things that
are common to all academic writing.

7. FINDING YOUR VOICE AS AN ACADEMIC WRITER
 In academic writing, it is important not only to present ideas, facts, and
conclusions but to also have a point of view or stance. When you are able to
consistently communicate that in your writing, you are using your voice. Or, as
succinctly stated by literary agent and Editor Rachel Gardner (2010), “Voice is all
about your originality and having the courage to express it” (para 5). To establish
credibility, it is necessary for your opinions to be based on evidence rather than
unsupported conjecture, ideology, or unsubstantiated generalizations.
 In some ways, it is easier to express one’s voice in conceptual articles because, by
their very nature, the writer is synthesizing literature, developing theories or
conceptual frameworks, and perhaps most important, advancing a new
perspective.
 However, voice can also be expressed in research papers, particularly in the
discussion section as the writer makes the transition from the study’s results to
arguments and conclusions.

8. HOW TO DEVELOP ACADEMIC VOICE IN WRITING
 MacPhail also suggests to read passages from your favorite authors and analyze their
writing styles. What is it that draws you to those particular authors? What makes their
writing compelling?
 Read critically
 Analyze the arguments and claims made by various authors and make connections
between their ideas and your own.
 As you critically assess others’ writing in your field, think about how you will be able to
use it in your work, and free write the ideas that emerge.
 Write first and revise later
 As Silvia (2010) notes, “The goal of writing is to “throw confused, wide eyed words on
a page; the goal of text revision is to scrub the words clean so that they sound nice and
make sense” (p. 75).

9. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
 The academic paragraph is organized around a main idea that takes the form of general
assertion or statement that is then subsequently developed. These main ideas capture
your evolving understanding of the subject you are discussing.
 Note: Ensure that you do have main ideas around which to organize your
paragraph by clearly identifying these in your text.
 Main ideas usually, but not necessarily, appear in the first sentence of a paragraph called
the topic sentence, which popken (1987) showed was a ‘standard feature in academic
articles, with some variation in usage across disciplines.
 By skimming through these topic sentences, readers are able to chart the progression of
your thinking.

10. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
 Using main ideas to push along your thesis
 Each main idea is used to advance your overall point of view, your positions, or your
thesis. Your research theses and essays, or any others type of academic writing, should
be organized around an identifiable point of view that you are developing. The main
ideas you bring forward in your paragraphs should support your point of view- push it
along, just as the details you include in developing your paragraph should support your
main ideas.

11. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
Ensuring internal paragraph coherence
 Sentences within a paragraph need to hang together, to cohere, so that they
evidence a logical flow.
 Consider what happens in this example, where coherence breaks down
 Recall bias has been a problem in this investigation. Despite the conclusive result,
the investigation has identified the need for a review of food preparation techniques
at this venue. it was not possible to identify clearly the source of contamination.
 As you see, the expected paragraph focus in the first sentence is ‘recall bias’.
However, the next sentences rapture this expectation by directing attention to another
topic, review of ‘food preparation techniques’. There is further rupture in the third
sentence as the reader is directed to yet another topic, the impossibility of identifying
the ‘source of contamination’.
 The paragraph is not coherent in terms of the flow of ideas. There are too many
ideas presented to quickly, with each idea needing further development. There
also needs to be coherent linking of paragraph across longer stretches of
writing.

12. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
Using logical connectives
 Paragraph can also be linked by Wards showing logical relationship: therefore, however, but,
consequently, thus, even so, conversely, nevertheless, moreover, in addition and many more.
 Usually though, logical connectives are used to move from one sentence to the next within paragraph,
that is, as internal paragraph transitions.
Here are three different logical connectives:
Last sentence of a paragraph:
Possible first sentence of the next paragraph:
A. However, the power relations embedded in the social structure may be more important in explaining
the causes of the riot.
B. Even so, there is no real attempt to grapple with the issue of the government’s role in the army’s attack
on unarmed men, women and children.
C. Consequently. Smith’s much quoted analysis of this same event needs to be reconsidered in view of
Brown’s findings.
Whatever its form, an inter-paragraph transition should be unobtrusive, shifting readers easily from one
topic to the next.

13. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
Manipulation sentence structure
Understanding how to manipulate English sentence structures will allow you to emphasize
important ideas, give focus to your writing and avoid alienation or boring readers.
These basic English Sentence structures provide for very sophisticated combinations of simple,
compound and complex sentences:
Simple sentence (one main idea):
Trade figures have improved
Compound sentence (two ideas of equal weight)
Trade figures have improved and so has the economy.
Complex sentence (two ideas of unequal weight)
Although trade figures have improved, the economy remains slow/ although the economy
remains slow, trade figures have improved.
Note the shift in emphasis in the turn-around here. In the first sentence the main idea is
the slow economy; in the second it is the ‘improved trade figures’

14. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
 Do vary your sentence structure. If writing consists of series of simple short
sentence strung together it will be monotonous and lack focus.
 It will be difficult for a reader to discern what you consider more or less
important about what you are saying.
 An excess of long sentences can be equally troublesome.
 Overloaded sentences that are not well constructed can also causes reader
confusion, making it difficult, even impossible, to understand the intended
meaning.
 So do take care, particularly if English is a second language or foreign language.

15. CAPTURING MAIN IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE
PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
The discards’ file
 When developing texts, you need to ensure that all ideas you bring forward are
directly relevant to the topic under discussion.
 It is certain that at times you will need to discard material because it just does not
fit the context of discussion.
 This can indeed be hard when it comes to being ruthless about insights and ideas
you have developed as beautifully constructed sentences, paragraph, even longer
stretches of writing.
 Pieces of writing to which you remain doggedly attached even though you sense
they do not fit. Every academic writer know about this dilemma.

16. IMPROVING OVERALL STRUCTURE
It is now time to become your own critical reader. Print out a stretch of your writing
Summarize your main ideas concisely in the margin of your text. As you do this note whether:
 Each main idea is being fully developed, or only partially developed so that you seem to be
picking up on it in different parts of your text.
 You are repeating yourself, or laboring the point, saying the same thing over and over again
in the same way( Note this too)
 You are presenting too many ideas too quickly so that some main ideas are not being
developed at all, or seem to be underdeveloped.
 Now consider the overall consider coherence of your piece of writing. Take a highlighter pen
and run quickly through your text, looking for evidence of linking- mark any sentences,
phrases or words that indicate linking within and across paragraphs.
 Do you think you already have the best order for your main ideas? Or would overall
coherence be improved by rearranging them into a new order?
 Do you think there is sufficient linking to ensure the logical flow of your ideas?
 Can you see how your main ideas contribute to the development of a unifying point of view
or a thesis, as in argument?

17. REFERENCES
Everitt-Reynolds, A., Delahunt, B., & Maguire, M. (2012). Finding your
academic voice: A student’s guide to the art of academic writing.
Susan P. Robbins (2016) Finding Your Voice as an Academic Writer (and
Writing Clearly), Journal of Social Work Education 52:2, 133-135,
DOI:10.1080/10437797.2016.1151267
https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2016.1151267
Writing for Academic success (2012) 2nd edition. Gail Craswell & Megan
poore
Successful academic writing (2009). Andy Gillett, Angela Hammond & Mary
Martala
https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/UniversityEssays