• 5-minute read
• 3rd December 2022

How to Determine a Piece of Writing’s Tone

Whether you’re analyzing a text for school or working on your own writing, being able to identify tone is an essential skill.

In this post, we give you some tips on how to determine the tone of any piece of writing.

What Is Tone?

“Tone” can be hard to understand. But in the context of writing, it can be summarized as the way an author expresses information to evoke a certain emotional response to the subject matter.

We normally use adjectives to describe a tone. And there are as many tones as emotions, which means the options are almost endless!

However, there are a few types of tones that appear often in writing, including:

Tone can be set in many ways, such as through word choice, syntax, point of view, and a lot of other subtle and abstract ways. For a more in-depth look at different types of tones, see our blog post on the subject.

To help you determine tone in writing, we’ll examine some of these tools in detail.

1. Understand the Context

A piece of writing’s tone will be heavily influenced by the circumstances under which it is written. These include its form or genre, its intended audience, and where it’s published.

For example, if you were writing or analyzing an article for a scientific journal, you’d expect the tone to be formal, technical, and matter-of-fact.

If you were writing or analyzing a short story in an anthology for children, on the other hand, the tone would probably be more informal, lighthearted, and optimistic.

To help determine tone, ask yourself these questions about a piece of writing:

●  Where will it be published?

●  Who’s the intended audience?

●  What genre or subject matter does it cover?

You can then use the answers to these questions to get an idea of what tone the piece should use.

2. Pay Attention to Vocabulary

Word choice is one of the most crucial elements of establishing tone.

Two sentences with the same basic meaning can have different tone depending on the words the author uses.

Take the examples below:

Though both sentences describe the same thing (a man adjusting his collar before walking into a room), the choice of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs drastically changes how we interpret what’s happening.

When analyzing a text or writing your own piece, you should think about certain words’ connotations and the emotions they inspire. Are they positive, negative, or neutral? If you swapped a word for one with a similar meaning but a different tone, how would your understanding of the sentence change?

You should also consider the effects of:

●  Long, complex words (e.g., “Machiavellian”) vs. short, simple words (e.g., “evil”)

●  Multiple adjectives and adverbs (e.g., “the beautiful, resplendent scarlet macaw”) vs. few describing words (e.g., “the parrot”)

●  Technical jargon (e.g., “parallel processing”)

●  Slang, colloquialisms, and idioms (e.g., “Slang drives me up the wall”)

3. Consider Punctuation

Authors can also use punctuation to achieve a certain tone.

Here’s how common punctuation can influence a piece of writing’s tone:

●  Exclamation marks indicate excitement, surprise, or other strong emotions. Using exclamation marks can imply a more informal and lighthearted tone, though they can also be used to show passion and persuade the reader of something. Writing that lacks exclamation marks establishes a formal tone but can come across as cold or dismissive.

●  Question marks invite the opinion of the reader into the writing, whether the question asked is rhetorical or not. They can imply a considerate and communicative tone, but they can also indicate confusion, ignorance, or conflict.

●  Periods, commas, and other pauses control the speed at which text is read. Adding more periods can slow a piece of writing down or break it into smaller parts, which can work to build a straightforward, reserved, or sharp tone. Adding more commas extends the length and complexity of sentences, which can create a passionate and suspenseful tone, or even one that seems avoidant.

4. Check Grammar Usage

Using grammar to indicate tone can be more subtle.

For example, an author may choose to use different pronouns to write from a particular grammatical point of view:

●  First person singular provides information from one perspective, so while it can establish an authoritative or personal tone, it can also imply a limited view of the world.

●  First person plural usually indicates an inclusive tone, but in some contexts, it can build a tone that’s condescending or even unsettling.

●  Second person is rare in writing but can create a persuasive, accusatory, or conspiratorial tone.

●  Third person is most often used to tell a story or describe something, so it can establish an informative and objective tone. At the same time, it can create a tone that’s more detached from the subject matter.

And while there are grammatical rules that writers are usually expected to follow, how closely an author follows these rules can also indicate tone.

For example, a more conversational piece might be more flexible about not ending sentences with a preposition than something intended to be formal and professional:

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