Asserting my own voice in my writing is ironically something that I have always struggled with despite the fact that I often have a lot to say and/or feel strongly about topics. After reading chapter nine of They Say, I Say I’ve realized that I feel the same way about adding my own voice as many other students do. I’ve always struggled trying to intertwine “everyday speak” with my academic writing due to fear that the two won’t blend well together or that my essay will sound poorly written. Looking back on those reasons now, I can understand why they make no sense because in reality most of us would prefer to have information told to them in the same ways that we normally talk to our peers. I know now that this can be done so easily by just adding your own explanation of the same piece of information after you’ve stated it in the “standard” way or in the author’s words.
The one thing that I would’ve changed about my writing if I could have was adding more of my own voice, and reading about how to effectively do that in They Say, I Say honestly really did help me to feel more confident in trying it next time. Especially in the case of David Foster Wallace’s writing, it would’ve been very easy to explain his theories in a simpler way to those who couldn’t fully grasp them by using the provided templates. In the future I will definitely be using all of the templates that they provided in my writing, especially when the text required for the essay is one that is difficult to understand or has a deeper meaning behind it.
