The recurring theme of how new social media, such as blogging, gives authors a voice in their work jumped out at me while I was reading the chapters from Writing About Literature in the Digital Age. In Dr. Burtons's chapter about Moby Dick, he explains how blogging makes writing about literature something personal where students can invest their personal views into their work and make their writing more meaningful. This theme again came up in Ben Wagner's chapter about racism in The Great Gatsby as he explains how literary criticism should include the personal views of the critic. The new forms of media really throw the straightjacket of formality aside during the beginning of the writing process and critical analysis of papers allowing for the character and voice of the author or critic to bleed into their work, making it have more depth and power. Standard research papers are usually written with high-brow language and are stiffly manufactured for the consumption of a sole individual, the professor. The voice of the author can get lost in writing these types of papers because the author's focus would be on impressing the professor as opposed to showing their vibrant thoughts and personal feelings in their writing. I feel that powerful academic writing can only be enhanced by personal insight and passion that are fastened to the cohesive ideas of a research paper or critical analysis.
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