The Importance of Tone

Felicity’s Study Tips: The Importance of Tone

This post is designed to help individuals taking the following courses: COM 155, COM 156, COM 219 and COM 220. Don’t struggle on the Homework Mountain!

  Often understated in importance, tone is one the keys to successful writing. Due to electronic mediums of communication such as texting and email, tone has become misunderstood and often ignored. This is a serious problem because many people do not realize how their messages are being interpreted. This situation has created many problems in the workplace and in people’s personal lives.
Many people today are not even aware of tone or understand its definition. For those new to this concept, the simplest definition for tone is it is a writing technique that is inclusive of the attitudes the author presents concerning a subject to the audience.

Homework Cat says,
"Don't take that tone with me!"

  Tone is an extremely vital component of the writing process. Authors who are unaware of their tone often turn away readers. The choices a writer makes in vocabulary and in being subjective can create tones that sound sarcastic or dull. An example of this tone can be seen in the way that something is stated:

“Obviously we made it back from our trip, because we are here.”
“We made it back from our trip to everyone’s surprise.”

The first sentence sounds sarcastic, almost mean, whereas the second sentence is lighter and more positive. Much of the determination of tone is contextual in nature but this is at least a small example.

          The loss of tone in writing has been, in part, due to the overuse of abbreviations and slang caused by electronic communications. Even though we may not mean to sound mean or sarcastic, when we write a message that is a single word response such as “And??” this message can be interpreted in this manner. Most people do not think of this because they are usually communicating with friends and in this instance tone becomes less important. The problem begins when people begin communicating in this way with supervisors, teachers, and other more professional relationships.
  The seriousness of tone should not be diminished. I worked for a company where a person lost her job because she sent an email to a customer that sounded mean. Although she did not intentionally try to sound mean in the email the effect of tone offended the customer and a large sales account was lost. The worker was quickly terminated.
  The best way to avoid problems with tone is to avoid using slang, abbreviations, and to be mindful of what you are writing. Word choice and arrangement can play a large part in determining the tone of the message. Simply being aware of tone can go a long way to avoiding problems.

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