2. What is tone?
Dictionary.com defines “tone” as:
a particular quality, way of sounding,
modulation, or intonation of the voice as
expressive of some meaning, feeling,
spirit, etc.:
3. How to add tone
Consider the audience
• If you are writing to elementary school
kids then you won’t want to use college
level words
Bad sentence to use when your intended audience is kids:
The ulterior motive of the protagonist was despicable.
4. How to add tone
Consider the audience
•Decide what audience for which you are writing
When writing a blog, people of all different kinds; men,
woman, college educated or high school drop out could
be reading your blog so you want a more general tone.
When writing for a specific group of people, use terms
and sentence structures to which they are more
accustomed
5. How to add tone
•Think of how you want your paper to sound,
serious, light, informal or formal, etc.
•Don’t make a paper that is intended to be serious
to be happy. The reader will be confused on what
you want them to think.
6. How to add tone
Kate Gaudet from Quamut.com reminds writers of this:
Determine Readers’ Level of Engagement
Ask yourself these questions:
•Why would a reader start reading my essay?
•Why would he continue reading it?
•What might make him stop reading it?
•How might he feel at the end?
•How can I write my essay to get the answers I want?
7. Things to consider
As Uvic.com writes:
“Be wary of being either too timid or too aggressive. A timid
essay hedges on every point, incorporating words and phrases
like probably, it seems that, to some extent and perhaps.”
You don’t want your tone to be too timid especially
in a persuasive paper
8. Things to consider
Uvic.com continues:
Conversely, an essay featuring numerous examples of
obviously, definitely, of course and the like is being
overly confident.
If you come off as “overly confident” then our
audience will be less likely to listen because
it will seem that you are belittling your audience.
9. Specifics to remember
•Remember you’re intended audience
• Keep in mind their level of knowledge
•Remember the emotion or how you want
to be portrayed to your audience
10. Works Cited
Gaudet, Kate. quot;How to Develop Tone and Content in an Essay.quot;
Quamut.com. Barnes and Noble. 28 Apr 2009
<http://quamut.com/quamut/writing_an_essay/
page/how_to_develop_tone_and_content_in_
an_essay.html>
quot;Audience And Tone .quot; UVic Writer's Guide.
15 June, 2001. University of Victoria. 28 Apr 2009
<http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/EssayWriting
Aud.html>.
