How do you know when someone’s angry? Their face may turn red, hands may clench, eyebrows drop. What about on the phone when you can’t see them? They might shout or cut you off or sound tense. (When I first moved to Taiwan, I thought the Chinese always sounded angry on the phone since they seemed to me to act like angry people do in my culture—speaking loudly with short words (that the Chinese language is built of)).
Writing has its own cues to tone. Shorter rhythms create tension (not necessarily negative tension—it could be excitement, for example) while longer ones feel calmer.
Punctuation sends clear signals as well (!?). If you have some kind of aside (a side note to your readers, as in when an actor turns to the audience and whispers something from the stage), you can change the tone by using different marks (parenthesis for a whisper), commas for a regular voice,--or double dashes as sort of an exclamation--.
The tone of a paper may change. This is fine as long as you’re in control of that tone. You may want to begin your paper, for example, with an urgent tone, making readers feel that they really need the information they’re about to read, and end the paper with a calm tone, promoting the idea that if they follow your steps to a solution, they’ll feel equally calm. Tones take time to build—you probably won’t succeed if you try to shift tones from one paragraph to another.
Tone may affect the actually meaning of your paper. Try an experiment—start by reading this:
Holly opened the door to her apartment and walked inside. She set her things on the table near the door and collapsed on the couch. She found the remote and turned on the tv, immediately muting the sound. She didn’t want to watch, but she didn’t have the strength to get up and turn on a light, either. Dim, flickering blue light reflected from the tears still running down her perfect face. She sobbed once, then rolled over to face the kitchen. There on the table she saw the outline of a vase holding a dozen red roses and a small note. Small hands rose instantly to hide her face and her body shook with sobs of grief and pain.
Quiz time: were the flowers good or bad news? How did you know? Don’t worry about Holly, by the way—she lives.
Now read this:
Never has there been a better time for investors. The market has already reached an all-time high volume and continues to climb steadily. Potato Frames, Inc. went under this week and investor confidence is soaring.
Q: is the demise of Potato Frames, Inc. a good or bad thing? How do you know?
If you ever have information that goes against your current tone, you should be sure your message is clear by using words like "but" or "at least" to show the disparity and not leaving readers to wonder what you meant.
Some tones can be dangerous to use. If you sound angry in your paper, readers may feel less inclined to trust your assertions—wondering how much your emotions have influenced your logic and fairness, and if you’ll think differently once you calm down.