Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Voice Lessons

I will be facilitating a discussion this Wednesday in my department about finding and developing your own authentic "scholarly voice." What is scholarly voice? I define it as a researcher's academic identity. Like the voice that comes out of your mouth, a scholarly voice involves things like volume (loud-soft) and tone (e.g., serious-playful). It also involves content--what is said. Implied in "voice" is that there is someone around who "hears" it--So scholarly voice also involves an audience (or, audiences) and how that audience receives the scholar and her message.

My own scholarly voice implies a voice that reflects me uniquely--not a clone of my advisor's but also not a generic "researcher X" voice. Developing this voice has been an ongoing process for me as a graduate student and as a researcher. Though developmental in nature, my lessons in voice will never end. I have become aware that others' lessons in finding and developing their voice share similar features with my own. But their lessons, like the scholars themselves, have been in many other ways unique.

Now, the goal for this seminar on scholarly voice is for it to be an open forum, a conversation among students at various stages of their graduate school program and faculty members, also at various stages of their careers. My goal is to be there mainly to open the discussion with my own 2 cents, and to keep the conversation flowing.

As I was reflecting on my opening remarks to kick off the discussion, though, soon my "2 cents" inflated to about $20-worth of my own thoughts. So, instead of the risk of me taking over the open forum, I thought I'd jot some thoughts here. (Again, anyone is welcome to use the "Comment" feature of this space to continue the conversation.)

So, below: My further thoughts on developing my own authentic scholarly voice.

What is Voice (part 2)?

Scholarly Voice, to me, embodies two things:

(1) Process of research

For example:

• choice of topics


• ways of conceptualizing and framing those topics


• disciplines and literatures I draw on


• how I do (and do not) draw on my Self in the process of the conduct of research

(2) Products of research

For example:

• tone of written work in a variety of formats and contexts (research papers, blog entries)


• ways I speak orally about my research, again in a variety of situations both formal and informal


• ways my Self does (and does not) show through in my final products

Side note: Academic "Branding"

Sometimes something akin to "scholarly voice" is discussed in the context of the need for scholars to "brand" themselves. That is, it is thought that academics must develop and maintain a unique, immediately recognizable identity for themselves and their work. These two things--"themselves" and "their work"--become largely interchangeable in the branding process: Scholars are both product and producer.

My understanding is that there has been a sort of "trickle down" process--from efforts of the university and units within it to do this sort of branding, to the notion that individuals within units must do this for themselves. Not everyone agrees, nor is everyone comfortable with these notions. But it does seem that academics are increasingly being encouraged to adopt an attitude of developing themselves as a scholarly product. (As an example, see this CoHE piece.)

Who am I? What the heck am I interested in?

A big part of my voice lessons has been simply recognizing that researchers actually can have a distinct "voice." I think that notion only started to gel once I got to know some researchers personally, apart from their writing. For example, with my own advisor: Over time I was able to see first hand his passion for music and choral singing. Thus, when he uses music metaphors in his research reports--for instance, in describing the members of the adoption triad as learning to sing in multi-part harmony--I now know that this is not a slick affectation, but a genuine part of his own personality.

As I recognized this about other scholars, I began to recognize that the voice I had developed over years of undergraduate and graduate training was not my own. Instead, I had adopted a kind of "course paper voice" meant mainly to please an audience of a single instructor. For a long time I was under the mistaken belief that a good "scholarly" tone equals a dull and dry tone--and there are plenty of examples of published work bearing this quality for me to mimic.

My first steps towards fixing this were tentative ones. For example, I realized in my masters program how different my "paper voice" was from my voice in writing poetry as part of a campus writing collective. My thesis was my first attempt to let more of me shine through in my writing.

I think that "aping" was the next step towards my voice development. I was able to pick out examples of scholarly writing that captured me, and I read them again and again. From some scholar, for example, I picked up the habit of saying "likely." Even now that I realize this was something I "borrowed" from someone, I can not stop myself from using it. (I bet I have used it all the time in these blog posts.)

This is no small matter. Part of what you have to learn how to do as a researcher is to appropriately qualify your results and conclusions. So for me, I have necessarily had to fool around with such phrases as "these data suggest..." and "a likely generalization from this result..." It's a big deal to learn how to qualify without sounding either wishy-washy or arrogant.

Learning how to make friends and influence people

A (perhaps) non-obvious part of voice development for me has involved my efforts to develop a social network of scholars. Many of my efforts in this area have involved me putting myself way out on a slim limb: emailing established scholars I met at conferences; sending copies of my course papers to scholars engaged in similar work; making efforts to talk with faculty in my department and elsewhere on campus who I would not normally be exposed to in the course of my graduate program.

It has been immensely helpful to, for example, get another scholar's perspective on something I have written. It's an odd--but revealing--experience to get someone's "take" on their own work, as cited by me. I am not always a naturally outgoing person, so doing this has sometimes caused me a great deal of anxiety. But I have been encouraged to continue. Often my emails, I'm sure, just end up in someone's "trash" folder. But in several instances such contacts have paid off, for example in collaboration opportunities and in me getting the chance to read scholars' drafts and receive copies of "in submission" papers.

Such opportunities to witness the "back workings" of scholarship has likely gone a long way toward the development of my voice. For example, I have become more and more confident in my own abilities as a researcher as I have been able to see the work of "established" researchers in various stages of development.

Well, that is enough for now. I am looking forward to Wednesday, when I will hopefully gain new insights and be able to add new pieces to my voice repertoire.

Posted by perry032 at October 2, 2005 12:24 PM | TrackBack
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