Tone

Lauren Hicks

Instructor Loudon

ENGL 101 Sec #5

October 5th, 2014

Tone

Tone is very important when writing a paper. It represents the authors whole attitude towards the subject they are writing about. It reflects the writers stance, whether it's reasonable, ironic, playful, or serious. The writing should have a clear and consistent tone, and the writer should be able to identify it.

Audience

When writing a paper your tone is very important for your audience. If you're writing about something for children your tone should feel more playful so that your audience can understand it easier. If you're writing a professional paper for a job, or to a professor, your tone might be a little more serious. If you're writing a paper, or an article for a newspaper or magazine your tone should be informational because you are suppose to inform your reader about certain topics.

Examples of tone

There are many different examples of tone like serious, anxious, confused, angry, happy, ironic, etc. It's all about how you say it, you want the writer to understand your tone through your word choice, sentence structure, and the length of your topic.

Examples through novels

To Kill a Mockingbird - the tone is innocent because, the main characters, Scout and Jem, struggle with having their innocence taken from them at such a young age.

The Crucible - the tone is very serious and devastating. Innocent people are being accused of horrible acts. Arthur Miller, the author, has a very serious attitude towards witchcraft and witches and expresses it through the reasonable witch trials.

The Great Gatsby - the tone is doubtful. Nick, one of the main characters, can't tell if Gatsby is being truthful or not about his past adventures.

A Separate Peace - the tone is mostly depressed, or sad. The author sets the tone a lot though the setting. Using winter as a dark time.

Difference between tone and mood

The definition of tone is the authors attitude towards the specific subject. Mood is what the author wants you to feel. People tend to confused both of them because they both deal with emotions about the same piece of writing. However you can define the tone through the authors word choice. The mood isn't as straight forward.

Tone and Setting

The author can set the tone by using the setting. Using the different seasons set the tone. If it's during winter or fall, the tone tends to be darker, of depressed. If the setting takes place around the spring or the summer the tone is usually happier, and hopeful. For example If the story is set in a small abandoned town the tone would most likely be scary.

Authoritative Tone

In Everyone's an Author it states that authoritative tone is usually used for academic purposes. Authoritative tone is when your tone is very reliable or knowledgable. It's usually used when trying to get your point across without showing that there are other options worth looking at

References

The Editors Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. .

Everyone's an Author. N.p.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2013. Print.

SparkNotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. .

Writerz Block. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. .