Voice: Real World Writers
Jim Esh
I think in my job I do just about every sort of audience and every sort of writing…writing for a medical journal is…objective, separating opinion from fact…I also write newsletters where I'm writing to clients and pet owners, and there I want to be entertaining and informative and I can throw in my opinions and everyone believes me because I'm a veterinarian, and it's actually kind of a fun type of writing to do. I do a lot of referral ultrasound cases and often times these are other veterinarians who only know me through my referral letter. So that's kind of their whole image of me and I want to build that image. So that's a place where you want to be a little bit friendly and conversational because you want to have a good rapport with this person but you're also being professional and just getting across the information of what was done on the procedure. So, yeah exactly…there's whole different styles for different audiences.

Michael Bertsch
First you have to consider your audience and your purpose. Once you know to whom you're writing, and you know why you're writing, then you can begin to select other items to create a whole presentation for them. And that's where voice comes in. You have to find out who your audience is, and you have to discover for yourself why you're writing that piece. And then you choose the most appropriate voice and tone and diction and language and those things to do what you want to do.

David Ellefson
I tried to keep in mind the people I was writing to, and I was writing specifically to musicians, probably a lot of young musicians, so it gave me an opportunity to rewind my life, go back to when I was, you know, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen years old, what was I thinking about, what head space was I in? How would I like to have been spoken to at that time? Would I, if I was reading a book, I wouldn't want it to be condescending, I wouldn't want it to be from a know-it-all point of view, I wouldn't want it to be… like I know nothing, you know. So I really tried to keep the mentality of the reader in mind.

Dave Barry
A good Associated Press news reporter, you don't have a voice. You're not supposed to, you're supposed to sound like the Associated Press. And you don't want to, if you're going to be a good sports writer, you have to have some voice, but you don't want to let your voice overwhelm the story. You still want to be telling this story because the reader's interested in what happened in this athletic event, whatever. Then if you're going to be a columnist, you become almost all-voice. You should have something to say with that voice, but the voice itself becomes extremely important.