Voice Critique

Steven Mills is a blogger who gives some very insightful perspectives through the use of his blog. His website, ratracetrap.com, covers developmental topics anywhere from financial independence to the science of success. Aside from the many topics covered, he has the ability to give his audience different ways to conceptualize what he is trying to get across to them through his choice of words and sentencing. There are a couple posts that are worth scrutinizing as to how he is able to convey his message so comprehensively. His post titled, “The Brain Surgeon, the Janitor, and the Six-Inch Pizza” is a fine example of the how he is able to utilize different words and textual cues to develop his voice. The author chooses not to truly engage his audience until the middle of his post. He begins with a very informal and non-interactive type of writing. Toward the middle of the post the reader is clearly able to distinguish the different forms of interaction and engagement that the author creates through particular sentence choices and questions. He goes about his post by telling his audience to “Imagine a Brain Surgeon’s office. Certainly the janitorial duties at the office are critical to success.” This sentence forces you to depict an office in your mind and by telling you that janitorial duties are “certainly” critical to success, you are almost sure to agree. Millis then asks his audience, “Does this mean the surgeon should perform the janitorial duties?” and quickly answers for us “Absolutely not and everyone can see that.” By structuring his questions and answers this way, the author is able to mold our thoughts and ideas so that we form a similar agreement with his thought processes.

Another post which conveys the authors particular use of diction and sentence phrasing is his post titled “You Cannot Choose the Wrong Path”. In this post the author discusses the issue of our incessant fixation on deciding the right path to take when given two choices to choose from. The decision may be a career choice or something less urgent like whether to take up a hobby or not. The way that the author chooses to structure this post was different than the last post which I described. Throughout the post author uses words such as "we", "our", and "you" to include his audience so that we feel highly connected; by doing this he can more easily form his argument in a certain direction. The author begins by halfway into his post by stating “You have the power to make these decisions in such a way to ensure you cannot make a bad choice.” The author uses “you” twice in one sentence and by the time I’m done reading it, I almost believe him because I feel like he is speaking directly to me. Another note to mention is that this sentence is also in bold letters and italicized. This gives that extra oomph and emphasis so that his audience gives extra attention to what he feels so strongly about. Shortly after, he goes on to say that “We start obsessing over all the pros and cons. Should I or shouldn’t I?” The author’s utilization of “we” appears again as it creates another camaraderie between him and the audience. Then when he immediately asks the question afterwards it allows readers to agree with him again and wonder if they also question themselves in a similar manner.



Here is a link to his website: ratracetrap.com