Style: Decorum & Tone

Even with the correct grammar, the most concise phrasing, the most effective patterns of repetition, your writing can still fail - and fail miserably - if your tone is wrong.

Tone communicates your attitude towards both the subject and your intended audience. It depends on a number of factors, including word choice (cheap vs. cost-efficient), sentence types (questions vs. commands), and even the order of ideas ("you're idea won't work, but I like you" vs. "I like you, but your idea won't work).

 

The Expressive vs. the Evocative Power of Language

As you consider your tone, take into account the distinction between the expressive quality of language and the evocative power of language:

• The expressive quality is that part of a word's meaning that communicates the author's attitudes. A writer, for example, can sincerely express respect for the audience.
• The evocative quality of language is that part of a word's meaning that directly engages or affects the audience's attitudes without the audience's being aware of it.

 

The Writer and the Intended Audience: A Matter of Contact

Any time you want to persuade your audience, you need a shared starting point - a place to begin where you both agree. That point marks the beginning of your argument, but it also marks your attitude towards the intended audience.

Unlike speech, writing separates you from your audience. As a result, you need to establish the illusion of your presence before a physically absent audience. That relationship (a part of one's ethos) is called contact.

You can establish one of five types of contact with your intended audience.

Type of Contact	What You Need to Know About It
Personal	It is writer-based. It imulates a personal monologue from a single speaker. As president and CEO of Rubicon & Co., I promise that we will make the finest inlaid furniture with the finest woods and the finest craftsmen.
Collective	It is writer-based. It uses the first person plural "we" when the represents a unified voice of an institution. We are committed to fair hiring practices. That is why we have implemented a hiring oversight committee staffed by people from throughout the company.
Impersonal	It is writer-based. It avoids any direct reference to the writer(s) by use of the first person pronouns. This type of contact is used in encyclopaedias, textbooks, and reference manuals. Although standard English is usually associated with official communications and settings, it is diverse in registers (stylistic levels), such as those for journalism (print, television, internet) and for academic publishing (monographs, academic papers, internet). [Source Links to an external site.]
Isolative	It is reader-based. It occurs when the writer refers directly to the reader with the second person pronoun "you." The idea is to make the address appear to be directed at that individual reader. There are problems with this approach that must be overcome if this type of contact is to be used. First, the direct address singles out the individual reader when the writer could be referring to any individual who happens to read this passage. To single someone out runs the risk of insulting the audience. Second, even if the writer doesn't insult the reader, the technique can make the writer appear to haughty or overbearing.
Aggregative	It is reader-based, but includes the writer as well. It uses the first person plural "we" in a way to include the audience into a group with the writer. It is designed to be inclusive, but that sense of belonging requires careful preparation to make it believable to the reader.

 

The Writer and the Occasion: A Matter of Register

One of the interesting features of words is that many have partial synonyms that convey the same idea but each synonym differs in tone because one is more formal while another is more causal. "Deceased" is more formal than "dead;" "kicked the bucket" is marginally more delicate than "worm food."

Register is that feature of a word's meaning that indicates its level of formality when contrasted with other possible synonymous terms. These levels of formality are important because we want the language we use to fit the occasion. Funeral orations and inaugural speeches, for example, require a formal diction that befits the dignity and solemnity of the occasion. The informal language of texting, with its reliance on emojis and acronyms (e.g., imho, fwiw) is casual and marks the greatest level of informality accepted by some businesses. The level of formality required in professional writing is called Standard Written English Links to an external site..