PROFESSOR'S HELPER (version 3.21). Michael Crumm. Dubuque, IA: Program Associates, 1987. ($39.95)

When teachers talk about the good qualities of student writing, one of their favorite terms is voice. Good student writing has it; bad student writing doesn't. Voice is sometimes a sign of control, of ethos, of style. It is often associated with persona or mask. But it is also often associated with something Peter Elbow in Writing with Power calls juice-a combination of magic potion, mother's milk, and electricity (286). When we read writing that has this juice, we feel the pulse of a writer churning over the facts the world presents (Ruszkiewicz, Well Bound Words 67); we sense the energy, humor, individuality, music, rhythm, pace, flow, surprise, believability (Murray, Write to Learn 144); we hear the voice of a real person speaking to real people (Lannon, The Writing Process 14). And while this voice-as-juice seems to have gained a considerable amount of respectability lately, it brings with it a kind of evangelical zeal that may not do us any good at all.

Although textbooks emphasize the importance of attention-getting introductions, such devices are hard to explain and hard for students to recognize. Perhaps even more important, such an emphasis may suggest to students a vastly oversimplified view of the reading process.