Voice in Writing

Having a voice in your writing is not an easy thing to do especially in academic writing where the whole point of your blog, essay, or paper is to prove your point all other things like humor, sarcasm and other figures of speech are not needed. All that is required in academia, for the most part, is good grammar and a good argument. Now I’m not saying that all academic bloggers and/or writers have no voice in their work but that it may be less vocal and noticeable then those blogs that are more informal. Now how does a blogger make a voice about a certain subject? I don’t have the slightest clue but let’s venture on to the world of blogging to get a better understanding.

Since I am focusing on healthcare reform I found the perfect showcase of voice in a blog and a strong one at that. The Watergate Summer blog is written by Enigma4ever, a female nurse from Middle America that covers any and all issues relating to the Healthcare reform. Her blogs are typically written from a liberal perspective that noticeably affects her voice. For example one of her funnier post is “Jon Stewart Confronted the “Death Panel” creator”. In this post she is reporting on how funny man Jon Stewart confronts Betsy McCaughey, creator of the myth in which mostly republicans stated that the healthcare plan would include a “death panel” of bureaucrats that would decided whether one is worthy of healthcare, believable…yeah right . When describing the interview she adds her own persona with witty little remarks about the situation and about the dear Ms. Betsy herself describing her as

“a well dressed misguided well pearled simpleton.”

My favorite line is how she describes the results of this myth as a

“Crapola that has now been spread across the country like fresh manure.”

She is able to portray humor by creating her own words like Crapola and make the situation even funnier with metaphors like the fresh manure line.

Enigma4ever not only brings humor to her blog by commenting on misinformed people as Ms. Betsy but she also brings a lot of emotion ranging from sadness to anger. In “Women in NJ Town Hall Bullied” she describes what happened at a town hall meeting to a sick women but what makes this post different from say a news clip on TV is the use of certain adjectives, punctuation, and capitalization that strongly display how she feels about the situation. For instance, she describes the occurrence as a

“Horrible Example of a total lack of Humanity- heartbreaking...and really
worrisome.”

She is a blogger with many opinions on healthcare reform and a blogger with a very strong belief of having healthcare for all that is displayed in every blog she post though the use of language that evoke strong sentiments, emotions, and sometimes anger. Her passion and compassion are easily visible on the screen with her many capitalized and punctuated remarks. She has a voice and a persona that revolves around the many issues of the healthcare debate including the good, the bad, and the ugly.