Jul 30, 2022
Steep thesis: Scientific texts can be written in a personal language style
"Style" is something that, at first glance, seems to defy clear definition. After all, style can mean many things: When one talks about something being stylishly furnished, it can paradoxically include apartments with antiquarian furniture as well as apartments with ultra-modern furnishings. Politicians sometimes praise themselves by distinguishing themselves from their rumbling colleagues with the words: "That's not my style." Furthermore, footballers can have a certain style, we can have a style of dress, and there are popsicles. Hold on. That last one has to go.
Whether it's furnishings, communication or ball technology - when we talk about style, we usually focus on something individual. Old-fashioned and modern furnishings have something of their own about them, which makes us think of style. The politician:in wants to point out personal idiosyncrasies to distinguish himself from others. The soccer player:in develops a special style of play either for himself or in the team and how often have we looked for "our own style of dress"?
So it's about a particular way of designing or executing something, sometimes so individual that you end up associating it with a particular personality.
So is the writing style. So when I write about writing style here, I mean the personal influence that helps determine the linguistic design of the text. And this influence varies, depending on the text you intend to write. Personal texts, written only for oneself, are more imbued with one's own personality than texts where there is a stricter requirement for their language.
But how is it now with texts for university? It is true that the language of these texts is more regulated than other texts. For good reasons. Pushing the personality back out of the language as well directs the focus to the object or objects of the text. And many linguistic features that define us as persons, such as particularly expressive metaphors, are indeed out of place in scientific texts. Now the idea that personal language use has little to no place in scientific texts can be off-putting. And not infrequently, this may be the reason for sitting perplexed in front of the Word document, wondering which words are allowed and which are not. This is also a recurring topic in writing consultations.
But it is a fallacy to conclude from the more regulated language in scientific texts that personal style plays no role at all. The linguistic formulation of a text is too complex for one to be able to say that one is now using the scientific language that is appropriate for the investigation and that one does not have much more to do with it personally. In the end, every text is the product of individual decisions. Thus, one's own writing style also colors the scientific text, albeit more pale than in essayistic or literary texts.
The way to one's own style
Apart from the finished product, which always contains a part of one's own personality, it is essential, especially for the process of creating the text, to find one's own voice, which one trusts, on the basis of one's own writing style. Using one's own style of speaking or writing for one's own thoughts stimulates thought processes because they take place on private terrain, whereas adopting platitudes and scientific-sounding phrases can rather inhibit one's own thinking. Writing coach Judith Wolfsberger explains how to find your own voice in the scientific writing process with the tip to write in your own technical language.
"Own technical language? What is that supposed to be? Write as if you were giving a presentation to your favorite professor in a friendly group of fellow students at university. Or as if you were explaining what you have read in your own words in a professional discussion in a tutorial or while studying with fellow students." (Wolfsberger 2009: 112f.)
Wolfsberger describes the effect in such a way that, on the one hand, an appropriate technical language develops, since one imagines fellow students who are familiar with the subject and with whom one can talk (more or less) at a certain level about the objects. On the other hand, however, it is positive and confidential situations that one imagines - not the strict professor with a red pen in his or her hand.
Of course, this does not mean that a written statement to fellow students is a work that is ready to be printed. Rather, Wolfsberger describes an attitude that should encourage personal writing and promote thinking. The finished work ultimately emerges during a process with revision phases. Here, leftover passages that do not meet scholarly standards can then be removed or modified. Writing becomes easier when the work steps are divided up.
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Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft
NameRobert Bosse
Schreibberatung, Workshops
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On the subject:
Wolfsberger, Judith: Freely Written. Courage, freedom and strategy for scientific theses. 2nd ed. Vienna et al. 2009.
This article appeared on the occasion of the Writing Center Newsletter in August 2022. This and other newsletter issues are linked in the Writing Center Newsletter Archive.
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Writing Center of TU Dresden
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The Writing Center of the TU Dresden (SZD) supports students and lecturers with offers for planning and writing various texts in studies such as vouchers, protocols, seminar papers and theses and for teaching academic writing in teaching and supervision. All information about offers and possibilities of support can be found in the areas for students and lecturers.
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