Summary In his article, "Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries", Peter Elbow attempts to explain the significance of voice

in a paper. He states, "Everyone has a real voice and can write with power. Writing with strong voice is good writing." Throughout the article Elbow, he explains the significance of voice in papers and how it is used everyday everywhere, classrooms, your household, with your friends. There are many different definitions and opinions on what voice is and how people use it today. Connection This article reminded me of McClouds article because they both talk about sensory and internal thinking. How your mind receives an image and understands it. Voice is in your head and when you think of something or see something it is your voice telling you what you see or think. Internal thinking is what your voice demonstrates as well as your senses. Assigned Exercises Questions for Discussing & Journaling: 1. How do you define voice? Have you encountered different definitions of voice in the past and how do they compare to Elbow's definition of voice? I define voice as speaking your mind. It is your own personal way of saying things. There is not one person out in the world with the same exact voice as you, there may be one very similar, but not the same as you individually. I have encountered different definitions of voice in the past throughout middle and high school. Throughout my school years, I felt like every teacher described your voice in different ways. One would say it is your personality in a paper and the other would say it is how you say or pronounce your ideas and thoughts. In comparison to Elbows definition of voice, he states an example about President George Bush; "Bush was probably elected because his voice was more persuasive and believable to other voters." This demonstrates that George Bush won his votes by the way he says things. Applying & Exploring Ideas: 1. Elbow identifies two kinds of voices linked to any writer: sincerity

and resonance. Can you write single sentence definitions, using your own words, for sincerity and resonance? And if you struggle with this exercise, what does this say about trying to use them in your own writing? When I hear the word sincerity, the first thing that comes to mind is freedom, we have our own freedom to express what we feel is the truth. Resonance is the way one describes something through quality of sound, the way you are saying something gives out the resonance you are representing. It was difficult for me to come up with definitions for these two terms and therefore, I believe that it is hard to use these terms in my own writing. When I am writing, I do not think of sincerity or resonance, I just write whatever is on my mind which may describe these terms; however, not entirely. Personal Opinion I believe that this article was interesting; however, I feel like I already knew or inferred most of Elbow's information about your voice of a paper. All throughout high school, I struggled showing my voice in a paper and I still do today. Elbow's article definitely helped me understand the concepts of the voice and gave me good ideas on how to find my own voice in my own papers. The article was somewhat jumpy, but I understood the overall argument Elbow was getting to.