How do we ensure that our voice is heard in a literature review?
We’re going to analyse four pieces of text to see how the writer’s authority is demonstrated.
First, as in this example, the topic sentence of a paragraph should be your statement,
not a citation from others. Make your ideas and arguments central.
In this paragraph, the writer’s voice is also strongly heard at the end.
In this second example, the writer, Janet Hunt, has grouped together researchers who agree with
her contention. They offer supporting evidence for her view. She shows she
is familiar with the ideas in her field, and she knows how those ideas relate to her own.
Listen to Takseng Kho reflect on his developmental process to become a successful candidate. His
former supervisor, Professor Doug Swinbourne, then suggests an essential ingredient
for the ‘successful’ voice of authority. Third, in this example the authoritative voice is
demonstrated when Caroline Tan addresses opposing findings or positions, by setting up a debate.
Notice how she states her claim in the topic sentence, follows with referenced opposing views,
and then presents even more sources (more up to date sources, incidentally) to support her claim.
And notice the powerful effect of the linking words, in green.
Finally, the academic voice not only refers to the authority of your own views; it is also
demonstrated by showing respect for the views of others, even when you don’t agree. Never attack
the person. In this example it’s not acceptable to call Smith ‘an unreliable source. Instead,
focus on evaluating the work. That is, talk about the research itself and its limitations.
Now we’ll look at three different texts, and work out which has more authority and why.These
examples come from Kamler and Thompson’s Helping doctoral students write.First, Geraldine’s text:
We can see that this writing reflects Geraldine’s inability or lack of confidence in contributing
her voice to the literature. She’s fallen into the trap of ‘he said she said’,
as you can see in the red text, simply reporting on different authors’ contributions.
This is how most of us begin, before we realise that we actually do have a contribution to make.
However this is descriptive writing. It is not critical writing.
In this text by Vera, there’s also no authorial control. It’s stuffed full of
the literature. All of Vera’s references have equal weight and this makes it very confusing.
What is the relationship between the writers and how do they relate to Vera’s work?
What is Vera’s work? There seems to be no point to this text.
Vera has not yet worked out who these people are in relation to her work and even to each other.
Here, Anne shows a hands-on-hips stance. She believes in her own thinking and experience.
She treats other writers and thinkers as collaborators, even as contributors to her
own work. Anne is definitely in control. Notice the strong topic sentence that shows Anne’s voice.
Notice the information prominent point of view, which Anne analyses and then synthesises
with other strategic trends, to suggest a likely consequence. Anne uses Cohn to back up this claim,
and the last sentence qualifies and consolidates her claim.Now open up some of the pdf activity
files under the Activities tab, think through the questions and check the answer keys. Choose some
in your discipline or an associated discipline. Also check out voice in other disciplines.
We can discover what we ‘know’ about writing by contrasting it with not so familiar discourse. And
Remember - You’ll find lots more online discussion and examples about voice in Research Writing.