Voice
"Voice" is an essential element of style that reveals the writer’s personality.
A writer’s voice can be impersonal or chatty, authoritative or reflective, objective or passionate, serious or funny.
When constructing the CONTENT of an academic essay, especially an argument essay, you must always remain in 3rd person voice.
Narrative/Expository Writing: Often, in lower-level writing classes, an instructor would have you write an essay about the three best things that you did over Christmas break. This type of writing would be predominantly in 1st person voice.
Process Essay Writing: In later years, you might have constructed a process essay: one where you clearly delineate the steps involved in a specific process—such as driving a vehicle with a Manuel transmission or baking a cake. That type of essay would have been predominantly in 2nd person voice:
You will need to … You might notice that…
Academic, Argument Writing: Now that you are at the upper-level for writing—at the college/university—you will be writing argument papers to express ideas on a subject and argue various points to persuade a reader. These academic essays will always be written in 3rd person voice.
Proposal Argument Essay: When you are assigned a proposal argument, you will need to argue that specific steps will fix an issue. This type of essay requires the content to be focused on steps of the proposal as well as strong appeals, argument, and sources to convince the reader that your thesis is correct.
Ethical Argument Essay: When you are assigned an ethical argument paper, you need to focus on the ethics surrounding an issue and argue as to whether that issue is ethical (or not) based on a pre-set standard.
Causal Argument Essay: When you are assigned a causal argument paper (cause and effect), you will argue that A caused B to happen. Then, the paper will argue that this is the reason for the effect on the issue.
No matter which style of academic argument essay you are writing, they all must remain in 3rd person voice. If you have forgotten some of the basics regarding ‘voice’ over the years, see the content on the next few pages to refresh yourself with the three standards for voice: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
Learning About Voice
Page 2: 3 "Styles" for Voice
Page 3: 1st Person Voice
Page 4: 2nd Person Voice
Page 5: 3rd Person Voice
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