The term voice is frequently used in current writing research. This review gives an overview of empirical studies which aimed to identify voice features in academic texts written by students and/or professional writers. The purpose of this article is to show how the understanding of voice and the aims and approaches used in the studies are intertwined. Many studies build on Hyland's (2008) interactional model which has contributed to insights into voice-related issues in academic writing. However, the overemphasis on linguistic features, such as the use of first person pronouns, entails the risk that research on voice ignores content-related features that might be more relevant in the construction of voice. In addition, this review emphasizes the need to relate voice features to the specific context where the writing occurs. The reader-based approach used in the studies by Matsuda and Tardy (Matsuda & Tardy, 2007;Tardy & Matsuda, 2009) or the combination of different methodological tools, as used by Dressen-Hammouda (2014), allows taking into account contextual aspects such as the insider knowledge of the disciplinary community and/or the genre, thus demonstrating how the writer's voice is always embedded in ways of knowledge making and writing traditions.

We investigated the readability of informed consent documents linguistically and compared old and new ICDs. Twenty ICDs (ten from 1987-1992 and ten from 2006-2007) were included. The Evaluative Linguistic Framework (ELF) was used to analyze the texts. The ELF evaluates the following items: main themes, order of themes, rhetorical functions, the relationship between reader and writer, metadiscourse, headings, expert terminology, and visual aspects. An ICD is considered readable if it achieves the goal of inviting the reader to participate and explaining the implication of participation. The new ICDs were more readable than the old ones, as they were more oriented towards research, contained instructions about how to consent, and provided clear contact information. Aspects that reduced the readability of the new ICDs were the large number of topics, details, and actors presented. The readability of the old ICDs was enhanced by fewer topics, a clear presentation of the involved actors, and brevity. However, their readability was reduced by the inclusion of a vast amount of information about the reader's diagnosis and treatment.

Developing a scientific writing course for doctoral students in engineering involves striking a balance between meeting practical expectations and providing students with an opportunity to develop their academic identity through their writing. This paper is based on a scientific writing course that incorporates both a genre approach and a process approach. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate a practice from a process approach to writing: log-writing. Students submit weekly logs in which they are to write freely about their doctoral projects; the teacher responds to each log, but does not correct or evaluate the texts. An analysis of the logs using Goffman's theatrical metaphors of "front stage" and "back stage" (Goffman, 1971) reveals that students use their logs for both front stage and back stage writing. When they are front stage, they write to play their roles as disciplinary characters, impressing their audience through disciplinary conventions. Writing back stage, they show private aspects of themselves as they work out and rehearse the roles they are to play. They worry, question, observe, discuss and reflect upon the practices and expectations of their disciplinary communities. They examine their own resources and use them to make choices as they further develop the role they will play front stage.

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