Students' conversational skills, sense of importance, and penchant for creating drama can create thoughtful and even powerfully compelling prose but only if readers let it. Unfortunately, the ways that beginning writers express ideas do not always match all readers' expectations. What does this have to do with what teacher-researchers call voice? Voice is often discussed in terms of writing that imitates the rhythms of speech or as a presence that shines through the text. But the practical question that gets asked again and again is how does the reader find voice on the printed page. In surveying the literature, what becomes apparent is the role of the reader in determining the presence of voice. Perhaps readers or instructors should start thinking of voice more in terms of the imperialistic power of language preferences and the resulting disenfranchisement of others. Papers that do not match conventional expectations are easier to discredit or dismiss as being out of control or incomprehensible. This means that students who live outside the White standard, Aglo-American, Christian, and economically prosperous parameters are liable to write in "unorthodox" or "incorrect" ways. In her book, "Justice and the Politics of Difference," Iris Marion Young discusses how denying difference contributes to oppression. Denying young writers the opportunity to use a form of language most comfortable to them may be seen as one form of this oppression. (TB)