1. Developing your ‘Voice’ & Reflective Writing
aura
Engaged Excellence in Research & Teaching Practices
Developing your ‘Voice’ & Reflective Writing
Research Course 4, Session 4, Day One

2. Session Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, you will:
Comprehend the notion of ‘writer’s voice’ and ‘tone’ in relation to blogging
Apply two writing techniques, useful for developing ‘writer’s voice’ and generating reflective writing, to develop your ideas for a blog post
Practice writing in a first person ‘voice’

3. What do we mean by ‘a writer’s voice’?
Flickr image. Credit: Garry Knight ‘With A Megaphone By A Wall’ Available under a Creative Commons license: CC BY

4. Writer’s Voice Think of a popular author (fiction).
What makes their writing uniquely recognizable as them?
What characterizes their writing (so that if you were given a sample of their writing, you would know it was written by that author and not by somebody else)?

5. Tone and Voice in Writing
Tone - relates to mood or quality or attitude (i.e. formal or conversational; aggressive or conciliatory etc.)
Blogging: informal, conversational tone
Voice – characterizes a piece of writing, is the personality within the writing and how that personality is expressed in the writing (i.e. you) –
Blogging: your own, first person, professional voice

6. Writers (creative writers) are highly skilled at accessing reflective (deeper) insights, overcoming writers block/challenges, and developing unique voice
Creative writing practices can support reflective learning and writing in an academic context – and help to develop voice

7. Two key (creative) writing techniques to develop voice and reflective writing:
Free writing – writing by hand keep the pen moving, don’t interrupt the process to edit, punctuate or correct. Repeat last word until a new thought arises.
Writing against the clock for an allocated time - (e.g. 10 mins, 15 mins, 20 mins)

8. Activity #1: Writing Practise
Reflect on a time when something significant happened in your work/research that you would like to share with others.
Write (by hand) in the first person
Keep the pen moving, don’t stop to correct, edit or punctuate!
If you get stuck, repeat the last word until a new thought arises.
Prompt questions:
What was significant and why?
What changed as a result?
10 minutes
Image: Pixaby, CCO Public Domain

9. Activity #2: Writing Practise
Scan what you have written.
Highlight 2 to 3 ideas that you could expand on or develop further into a blog post (you will be writing this later in this course).
5 minutes
Image: Pixaby, CCO Public Domain

10. Supporting your Reflective Writing Practice:
Free writing – generates ideas, reflective insights, raw material, developing voice
Writing against the clock – gets content onto the page that can be shaped at a later stage
Daily/regular writing practice – at the same time, every day/week
Journaling – keep a learning journal / notebook (private to you).
Put writing away – come back with a fresh mind.
Establish peer support (“critical friends”) – critical feedback, ask critical questions, help you develop your ideas and voice.

11. Session Learning Outcomes
You should now be able to:
Comprehend the notion of ‘writer’s voice’ and ‘tone’ in relation to blogging.
Apply two writing techniques, useful for developing ‘writer’s voice’ and generating reflective writing, to develop your ideas for a blog post.
Practice writing in a first person ‘voice’.

12. The content is authored by:
Emma Greengrass
Learning Coordinator
Institute of Development Studies
Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.