- May 2022
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human.libretexts.org human.libretexts.org
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Not much—except, perhaps, a clumsy metaphor that gets in the way of more accurate descriptions of a reader’s response. Conversely, letting go of the author’s voice turns writers’ and writing teachers’ attention toward more important aspects of learning to write.
It is better to let go of the idea of an authors voice for writers and readers
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aspects of good writing that reflect what readers want and need.
I agree with this. If we stopped focusing so much time on the authors voice, we would be able to point out many aspects of good writing
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the author’s voice is always a fabrication—a fiction—in the mind of the reader.
I relate to this, because this is something I do. I create a voice for my author in my head and that voice also tells me certain characteristics behind him.
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an audience is always an approximation
You can never completely determine who your audience will be as a writer.
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Using the author’s words, the reader weaves together an interpretation based on the reader’s own previous experience
The way a reader interprets a piece of writing has a lot of factors to it. One of them can also be from their own past experiences.
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Much of that power lies in the ways readers infer an author’s voice into a text.
This is the main goal of a writer. How does a reader look at your writing based on the way you have wrote it. This also can relate to your physical characteristics.
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Reading is itself a constructive act—quite literally, reading is meaning making.
Reading is the result of understanding writing.
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Writing, as a communicative activity, is made for an audience of readers
This is my main purpose of writing, so that readers can look at it
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Further, since writing and speech are conceptualized in terms of rhetorical practices—that is, the uses of language as a means of creating knowledge and effectively communicating that knowledge—applying verbal qualities of speech to writing provides a kind of shorthand for thinking and talking about writing.
Comparing and contrasting writing and speech
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Part of the reason advice about developing one’s authorial voice is scant is because the concept of voice usually implies some intrinsic characteristic of the author herself
I agree and relate to this. My writing has somehow shown my point of view and how I relate to a certain situation. An unconscious bias.
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