Writing with voice, is there such a thing that can allow the expression of the mind without hindering the beliefs of writers? Looking at the works of art from famous writers, there have been times where inspiration from them works best when writing in an academic discourse community. The structure may not be followed word for word, but in a way, gives a sense of direction as to how to write towards a specific audience. Imitation follows writers who feel as if there is a right and wrong answer on the content of the paper that is handed before them. I find myself in this position when I am insecure about letting myself go with writing, because I have doubts in my mind about whether or not I was able to stick with the topic given to me. English classes have constantly told me to write objectively no matter what the topic may have been. If there is one thing I have gotten out of Crowley’s Ethical Proof, is that “truth can only be seen through the written works of the personality (204). But is this really what writing has boiled down to? To me writing is simply imitating the works of published writers in order to make ourselves stronger as writers. We can understand the sentence structure, meaning, and bring authority to our writing where writing with voice can be achieved by substance. Because if in fact voice based on substance was missing in a paper in an academic discourse, this would cause a monotonous voice, ultimately losing meaning.
I write academically because it was the way I was taught to write in each of the English classes that I took. No matter what assignment was given to me, I had no choice but to follow structure, destroy some truth, and adjust to the academic discourse. Each paper has a beginning, middle, and an end, which is what I’ve been following for the most part in my writing. Looking back on presentations, reading out loud my own personal writing, there was a lack of tone, expression, and understanding to some. But writing with voice in my paper was based off of substance, rather than the personality. I had fears of using voice with personality, because I was afraid that writing that way would only lead to a failing grade. So I have and will continue writing with voice through substance, because somehow using substance brings clarity, and less rambling in some cases.
There is the different way of defining voice, and that is to bring out the style of the writer, rather than the substance. When I think of style, all I can see reading is nothing but a conversational type of voice. It loses flow, authority and the ability to reflect on the writer’s decision on certain topics. I would struggle trying to use style to bring out the voice of my writing only because the perspective it brings towards others would be a difficult task. When writing in a playful or sarcastic manner, the amount of authority it brings to the writer would weaken, because it comes from a bias standpoint of the writer, compared to having carefully constructed support for each opinion made.
Expressing the mind is key with bringing meaning to the context of any written work, but if a certain style was used for the writer, this would lead to having a set group of people to understand voice, rather than having an entire academic discourse community to interpret the style of the writer. In Crowley’s Ancient Rhetorics, she discusses how Ancient rhetors would argue as a community, focusing on various issues at the time, and merely focusing on the debate, rather than the facts presented to them. With this method, the beliefs that are followed can be expressed as if it were writing with a sense of substance that is, being able to use the information given and using it to express the mind and creating new ideas. The modern rhetoric follows the idea of using style in writing, where the modern rhetorics use this idea as a shouting match, where the self is at stake for being biased about certain views in the world. Authority is lost, where the perception of the argument is flawed, and the attempt to express the mind goes to the extreme.
Since writing with voice is found to work best with the substance of writing, imitating a section of Harry Frankfurt’s novel On Truth, would be successful when writing with the style of Frankfurt and writing it from my own perspective without losing my own meaning. Frankfurt on page 44 is imitated through his style with my perspective on love which is, “now, if a person who experiences joy realizes that joy has a particular cause from other parts of his or her life- that is, if the person notices someone or something as the object he owes his joy depends on- Spinoza believes that the person has an undying love for the object. Which is why he concludes love to be: the way a person reacts to the recognizable beings, that bring a sense of joy. They love what we find helps them to live their lives and become themselves. I find it that Spinoza does have a point in this. Many typical moments of love do go through, more or less obviously, the pattern that he defines: people do love what they feel helps them to “find themselves,” or to discover “who they really are,” are to face life in the best way possible without destroying or manipulating their surrounding natures”.
To understand the beauty of love, Spinoza also states a finding about love that seems to prove his statement correctly: “One who loves necessarily strives to have present and preserve the thing he loves” (Ethics, Part III, proposition I I, scholium). The things a person loves are crucial and precious to him. His life, and both his achievement and his continued enjoyment of individuality, depends on the objects that are loved. Therefore, he naturally takes care to protect and make sure that they are available to him at any moment.
Looking back on this exercise, I find it best that the way to define my voice in a paper is to take the works of one writer and form the writing to reveal my own perspective. Corbett’s theory of imitating the works of practiced writers, can allow a growing writer to follow various sentence patterns that were used in the exercise. Reading through my own imitation on Frankfurt’s take on the object of love in life, I can see my voice coming through in the end, especially in the last couple of sentences, “The things a person loves are crucial and precious to him. His life, and both his achievement and his continued enjoyment of individuality, depends on the objects that are loved”. I do find that this is how I write and think in my mind. If the writing of voice were to be any different, I would have become frustrated trying to make a point, where it would be Frankfurt imitating my own writing through his own perspective. I feel as if imitating what Frankfurt had written about this topic gave me a sense of direction as to how I should interpret the being and the object of love.
Using this exercise has made me realize that what I am writing on this paper is my voice that has followed me throughout my academic career. The argument I had made in the beginning of the paper, where the substance of the paper was in fact writing with a voice, still holds true after imitating a section of Frankfurt’s writing, only because the content of his writing on this particular subject gave guidelines as to how to go about writing about love. I have found myself using the methods of practiced writers to my own advantage, where I am able to follow Corbett’s method of sentence pattern structure, which has allowed me to read what Frankfurt had written and simply putting it in my own words with the help of imitation. Grammar, pattern, and the flow of the sentences were set in Frankfurt’s way, where I am able to use his style of writing and at the same time keep a strong perspective on the topic.
Writing a section using Frankfurt’s style and my perspective was at first a difficult task. There were some things that I wanted to write from the way I viewed the section on the object on desire, but it would have led to changing the meaning entirely. For each sentence pattern that was imitated, that became fairly easy because it was given to me in the first place. Even after this exercise, I still find that writing with voice is used through the substance of the paper, rather than having to change the content in order to lay down my own beliefs. From what I have learned from all this is that the perspectives on various writers can change. There are those who would rather change the content of the paper to make a statement on their personality, and those who find it best to put the work of a published writer into his or her own words.
Posted by dover94 on October 21, 2008
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