Roviyas

either you have it or you dont

either you have it or you dont

Hi everyone! Im pleased to be creating my first post on academicsecret. My post is actually somewhat related to Mahoganys, in the sense that its about writing style/voice -- but rather than being about detecting an advisors voice, its about an advisor detecting mine.

I got the rather daunting news about a month or so ago that the style of my first dissertation chapter is not up to snuff, that it needs to be more exciting, punchy, vivacious; in short, my style needs to be more... stylish. (Im in literary criticism, so this matters, especially given the increased difficulty in getting literary studies published these days.) In the past Ive been told, by my advisor as well as others, that my work is well-written, so this hurt. But upon re-reading the chapter, I realized it was indeed rather boring. I was doing the thing I really hate when published critics do it: my topic sounded cool at first, but I wasnt engaging the reader.

Heres my secret fear: what if I dont have a style? This might sound ridiculous, but I really dont know if theres anything distinctive about my critical writing, and I have a lot of doubts about being able to develop a style at this stage in the game. At first I was upset with my advisor for not giving me any specific tips on how to develop a style, but then I thought about my own teaching and how difficult it is to help students develop a writing style. You can show them what defines other writers styles, and you can help them find topics that might tap into their voice, but its very difficult to teach style. Is style one of those "either you have it or you dont" things? And what if I just dont have it?

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