Week 8 Newswriting

     When I heard what the assignment for this week was, I was excited because my writing voice is something that I have given some thought to in the past. To describe my writing voice, I believe I must describe my background in writing. 

In high school, I was taught to write a certain way. This is a problem that most people encounter in their writing career as they believe that there is a proper way to write. For my first three years of high school, I was a “terrible” writer because I did not follow these parameters. I constantly received bad grades on my writing because of this. I had one teacher, however, (history) that I never received a bad grade from (at least in writing). He was the type of guy that most students got along with. Toward the end of my junior year of high school, he had us do a research essay on any topic of our choosing. I am a huge basketball fan so I chose to do my essay on the rivalry between the Boston Celtics, and the LA Lakers. After I turned in my essay I did not think about it again till I was approached by my teacher a few weeks later. He asked me if he could use my essay as an example for class because he thought it was well written. I was surprised when I heard this because I had thought that my writing was bad. 

Fast forward a few years and I am in my freshman year of college taking my first communications class. After a few weeks passed the topic of writing voice came up. Once I started to understand that the so-called “rules” of writing could be broken, I started to realize that this was something that I was already doing. 

My writing voice has always been slightly sarcastic in some aspects, but also very suspenseful. I am the type of person that likes a story, and I like to take my time on getting to a certain point. I want there to be depth before I reveal something. I also like to help my reader to visualize my writing. Sometimes this means that I will create some sort of analogy to help myself, as well as the reader, to grasp a certain concept. This is something that I was always graded harshly on in high school because it “went off the beaten path”. Once I got to college I was praised for doing the same things, and this was because my reader was now looking for a distinct writing voice. 

In the end, I do think that writing voice is something that should be taken to heart as it provides substance to writing. I value a connection when I am reading, so that is something that I try to do in my writing.