VOICE in Body Paragraphs



Whose Paper Is It

Your voice needs to always be the driving force for your body paragraphs.  It is best if you write out your rough draft and then locate sources that can defend what you have already written.  By doing this, you are able to keep the essay in your voice with your ideas as the dominating factor.

When you think about the percentage distribution of the writer’s voice compared to source usage in an academic essay, at the college level, you need to keep in mind that the content must be at least 80% YOU and only 20% or less of outside sources.  This means that you really need to be careful and purposeful in what source content you use and WHERE you put it in the paper.  

Present Ideas - Do not Ask Questions

You are writing your paper to present your ideas.  They are important, and you want to make sure that your audience is taking the time to really hear you.  Therefore, you will not put questions in your body paragraphs.  Questions pull the audience away from your voice. The question will jar them, and they will think about their view of the question.  Instead, simply turn those questions into statements.  Do not lose your audience by stopping them to consider a question.  Tell them what to believe and why.  

There will be NO questions in the body paragraphs.  

See THIS HANDOUT for more help with this concept.

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