Scholarly Voice And Writing
Some people are aloof to read scholarly articles for the fear of not understanding them. They have this connotation that since the articles are written by those masters in the subject, they could not easily relate to them. Obviously, this notion about scholarly articles does not favor both the readers and the writers. While the readers will continue to elude such kind of writing, the writers on one hand will be limited in proliferating their messages. How could this scenario be avoided? Perhaps it is good to start in solving the problem about the misconceptions of scholarly writing.
The writers of these articles could probably hold several degrees in their fields, but it does not mean that what they write are being understood only by those who are also in their same fields. At this point, the role of effective scholarly writing takes place. It is now the responsibility of the writers to convey their message using the most appropriate and effective manner of scholarly writing. What then are the criteria for effective scholarly writing and how does one achieve it? Effective scholarly writing could be best described as having an effective scholarly voice.
What then is a scholarly voice? Scholarly voice is simply described as the voice that reflects one’s cognition about a topic. A person having a scholarly voice represents his full grasp on his subject. Because his audience could not see him, the way he wrote will define his voice. His writing is his own voice. Therefore, it is important to know how to have an effective scholarly writing. Scholarly writing is a kind of writing characterized by clarity, conciseness, and precision in words. By clarity it means that the writer should be able to express all of his thoughts in a clear, understandable manner.
This could be achieved by following some tips. For example, relying on grammar, spelling, and writing style manuals would add to the clarity of the message. Being concise, on the other hand, could be achieved through giving the readers a comprehensive message. With comprehensiveness, it means that the message should not only be complete, but should reflect objectivity as well. A scholarly writing is based on solid evidence. Finally, preciseness in the use of words means appropriateness in language choice. As Professor Lilburn Hoehn has said, “Figure out what you want to say and just say it”.
An effective scholarly writing is direct to the point and free from wordiness or puffery. Although there are criteria for effective scholarly writing, sometimes outside factors may affect a writer in his writing. One of these is the intended audience. A writer should be sensitive to the basic information about his intended audience—its demographics, its personality, and most importantly, its expectations and needs. As a scholar writer, one should know that his intended audience is mostly comprised of people of his same level of mastery.
His writing should be strongly based on evidence because his intended audience is composed of critical and rational thinkers. Thus, the writer should know what he is writing about. It should be true and should matter to his audience. Having described effective scholarly voice and writing, it is now better for me to assess myself. I believe that one of my greatest assets is my keen sense for objectivity. Because of this, I am sure that I will be able to exude one of most important characteristics of effective scholarly writing—objectivity. However, I also believe that one of my weaknesses is being wordy with my writing.
Knowing that my intended audience, I should try to eliminate this weakness and convert it to an asset. To do this, I believe that I should expose myself more to samples of scholarly writings. More importantly, practicing my writing skill is the best way to gain my goal. Gaining the skills to write a scholarly article using a scholarly voice seems to be a task hard to attain. While most people are accustomed writing and using layman’s terms, it is still not a valid excuse to elude from learning how to write in a scholarly manner. One should really have the determination to learn the principles of scholarly writing.
