SOURCE: IB COMPANION GUIDE, 22-24. VOICE IN ACADEMIC WRITING Put your syllabus form in the box.
S O U R C E : I B C O M P A N I O N G U I D E , 2 2 - 2 4 .
VOICE IN ACADEMIC WRITING
Put your syllabus form in the box.
PERSONAL VOICE IS:
• WHAT you talk about
• HOW you talk about it
• Word choice specific to you
• Word order and arrangement
• Choice and variation of sentences
• Connection and length of paragraphs
• Etc.
• Natural – appropriate to age and experience
PERSONAL VOICE IS NOT:
• Scribbling thoughts ―any which way‖
• Filled with inaccurate uses of words
• Filled with invented rules of grammar, punctuation,
or spelling
• The one you use in your most informal daily
conversation
• One that is ambiguous and hasty
VOICE EXPERIMENT
• Use the following words to describe a setting. Aim
for one to two paragraphs.
Pistol Lightning Blue Estate
Flame Shouting Quietness Calmly
Waves Tea Perched Windows
Fuse-box Shaken Bursts Stereophonic
Evening Before Target Signal
VOICE EXPERIMENT
• Compare your work with that of another student
and discuss the similarities and differences.
• See if you can find some evidence of a particular
way of combining words, making sentences and
paragraphs – your style, in other words
RUNNING IN THE FAMILY (MICHAEL ONDAATJE)
An hour later I am standing in the hall with Susan
when I hear a pistol shot. Blue waves of flame. The
house—hit by lightning, hit at the fuse-box on the wall
just above my head. I am so shaken I act calmly for
the rest of the afternoon. Lightning has never
touched this house before even though, perched on
top of a tea estate, it seems an obvious target. The
bolt is a signal for the end of quietness and the
weather bursts open windows and steps into
hallways. During the long evening we play scrabble,
shouting out scores, almost unable to be heard over
the stereophonic field of the rain.
THE MISTAKE OF TRYING TO IMITATE “HIGH” LANGUAGE
Once upon a point in time a small person named
Little Red Riding Hood initiated plans for the
preparation, delivery and transportation of foodstuffs
to her grandmother, a senior citizen residing in a
place of residence in a wooded area of
indeterminate dimension.
(Russell Baker)
A FURTHER EXAMPLE: SONNET 73
• Student spoken topic: I noticed Shakespeare uses a
dying fire and falling leaves and fading twilight to
suggest his own passing years.
• Student writing: A careful reader of Shakespeare’s
Sonnet 73 will perceive that the poet carefully
articulates his fundamental metaphor by
manipulating the integration of images concerning
death or dying with his own emotional and
intellectual state that is projected onto nature and
natural phenomenon.
Source: Adams, Michael. The Writer’s Mind: Making Writing Make Sense.
SUMMER READING RESPONSE
• Write a paragraph in response to one of the
following questions:
• With which character do you most identify?
Explain.
• Which book ―spoke to you‖? Why?
• Which author presented the story in a more
―reader-friendly‖ way? Explain.
• Choose an author. How does that author
develop one character? Explain.
DISCUSS
• What is voice and how do we develop it?
• Why is it important, when studying and
quoting the works of others, to have our own
writing voice?
CLASSIFY VOICE
An hour later I am standing in the hall with Susan
when I hear a pistol shot. Blue waves of flame. The
house—hit by lightning, hit at the fuse-box on the wall
just above my head. I am so shaken I act calmly for
the rest of the afternoon. Lightning has never
touched this house before even though, perched on
top of a tea estate, it seems an obvious target. The
bolt is a signal for the end of quietness and the
weather bursts open windows and steps into
hallways. During the long evening we play scrabble,
shouting out scores, almost unable to be heard over
the stereophonic field of the rain. (Ondaatje 166)
TRADE PAPERS
• Trade papers and have a classmate
describe your ―voice.‖ Use lots of
adjectives.
• Remind Purvis to give everyone a CPS
remote…she’s getting old.
IMBEDDING QUOTATIONS
• Why is it important to know your own voice
when writing a paper that uses quotations?
• Discuss Hjortshoj’s ideas.
PLAGIARISM
• ―The representation of the ideas or work of
another person as the candidate’s own‖
(IBO, 2.1).
• ―Copying works of art, whether music, film,
dance, theatre arts or visual arts, also
constitutes plagiarism‖ (IBO, 2.3).
ACADEMIC HONESTY
• Authenticity and Intellectual Property. IBO,
2.2, ―all ideas and work of other persons,
regardless of their source, must be
acknowledged.‖
• Antonym: academic dishonesty
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
• IBO, 1.3 ―Forms of intellectual and creative
expression (for example, works of literature,
art or music) must be respected and are
normally protected by law.‖
AUTHENTIC AUTHORSHIP
• IBO, 1.2 ―An authentic piece of work is one
that is based on the candidate’s individual
and original ideas with the ideas and work
of others fully acknowledged.‖
MALPRACTICE
• ―behaviour that results in, or may result in,
the candidate or any other candidate
gaining an unfair advantage in one or more
assessment component‖ and includes
plagiarism, collusion, duplication of work,
etc. (IBO, 2.1).
EXAMPLES OF MALPRACTICE
• The following list is taken from IBO, 2.7: • Paraphrasing without acknowledging
• Fabricating data
• Taking unauthorized material into examination room
• Misbehaving and disrupting an examination
• Exchanging or helping to exchange information about the examination (i.e. telling B-day what the test covered)
EXAMPLES (CONT.)
• Copying
• Referring to unauthorized material (i.e. sparknotes, bookrags, pinkmonkey)
• Failing to comply with instructions from test supervisor, proctor, etc.
• Impersonating another student
• Offensive material with no academic or intellectual purpose
• Stealing exams
COLLUSION
• ―supporting malpractice by another
candidate, as in allowing one’s work to be
copied or submitted for assessment by
another‖ (IBO, 2.1)
• This is different from collaboration in that the
assessment criteria requires each student to
produce an authentic and original product.
COLLABORATION
• working together when approved by
teacher or assessment guidelines. This is
different from collusion in that the final
product is allowed to be a group effort.
DUPLICATION OF WORK
• multiple submissions
• ―the presentation of the same work for
different assessment components and/or
diploma requirements‖ (IBO, 2.1).
PARAPHRASE
• IBO, 4.9: ―Paraphrasing is the rendition of
another person’s words presented in a new
style and integrated grammatically into the
writing.‖ (Emphasis added.)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
• IBO, 4.8: more than just regular print and
electronic sources, it ―include[s] the use of
footnotes or endnotes to acknowledge the
source of an idea if that idea emerged as a
result of discussion with, or listening to, a
fellow student, a teacher or any other
person.‖
ACADEMIC INFRINGEMENT
• IBO, 11.1—When a student’s work does not
―conform to the standard academic
practice of clearly acknowledging all ideas
and words that are not the candidate’s
own,‖ but is not considered ―a deliberate
attempt by a candidate to gain an unfair
advantage.‖ Although not as serious,
because not intentional, as academic
malpractice, this offense can still affect a
candidate’s score.
ACADEMIC INFRINGEMENT
• IBO, 12.5, ―No marks will be awarded for the
component part (or parts) of the
component,‖ but the student will still be able
to sit for the exams and be considered for
the subject certificate and the diploma.
However, having lost the opportunity to gain
the points from the component part may
adversely affect the certificate score for the
subject area.
INTEGRATION
• Three rules of integration, taken directly from Hjortshoj, p. 181: 1. The readers should always know whose
language they are reading.
2. Sentences you assemble with quotations should read grammatically.
3. Your use of quotation (including splices, ellipses, and brackets) should not distort the original meaning of the quoted material.
• Essential Question: How will you analyze and
apply what you’ve learned about avoiding
plagiarism?
• Language Objective: Appropriately
integrate material from one or both of the
summer reading novels using MLA format.
TOPIC
• You may expand your paragraph writing or
choose a new topic from those given:
• With which character do you most identify?
Explain.
• Which book ―spoke to you‖? Why?
• Which author presented the story in a more
―reader-friendly‖ way? Explain.
• Choose an author. How does that author
develop one character? Explain.
ASSIGNMENT SPECIFICS
• 2-3 page paper
• Interesting title
• Proper MLA throughout
• Use of at least four direct quotations
• Works Cited (not included in paper length)
• Rubric on the website
MLA REVIEW
• CPS quick fire challenge
• Write the correct answer on the ―MLA
Formatting Review‖ handout if you get it
wrong.
MLA refreshers available on my website.
LASTLY
• Previous groups of students have done this very
assignment. The feedback that I gave them is
available on the website. Please review it to save
yourself some mistakes.
• Also read ―A Few Thoughts on Style / Quoting, ‖
which has information on writing papers that sound
ORGANIC and that use quotations well