Tone is that unavoidable way an author speaks in his or her writing. Tone can even be flat, dull, and boring but still be considered tone. Tone is like how colors have meaning like red is an angry mood or how blue represents a sad mood such as the tone of a story. The reason we use tone to keep the reader interested in what we are writing about, whether it is a fictional story or a college paper. As an upcoming freshman you should be thinking of how the purpose of tone has changed. A few things you should be thinking about changing in your college writing is the audience, word choice, and purpose.
The area of tone you should think about changing is who it is the audience reading your work. While writing papers in college you have to understand who you are writing the paper for because you could be writing for professor or to another student. When writing a paper for a professor you want to make formal because you don’t want sound like you are talking to your friend. You want your tone to be serious and enthused about that topic because it could be the professor’s passion.
Another area of tone that you should look to change is word choice. Word choice is key to determining what tone the author is using. As you already some words portray different tones like “I was a dark and stormy night” infers that there is a negative tone. Your tone in a college paper says a lot about how you feel towards a topic. In an argumentative paper you want the tone to sound supportive of your argument. In some cause like if your typing a summary for a class you want a none bias tone and use sayings like ”however the author says that”.
Last area of tone you should consider to change when taking a college level English is the purpose of tone in writing. First step of this is to know who you’re writing the paper for. In this case you are writing for a college professor so your paper must have the proper tone that shows your argument and if you agree or disagree. It also shows how the writers feelings towards a topic. By using proper tone you want your audience to take away from reading you work. You want your tone to help provoke the ideas of your readers.
Tone in writing is one of the most important things in your writing to grab the attention of your readers. The tone of your paper will determine how your audience sees you as a writer. As an upcoming freshman you should start gearing towards making your paper appeal to the reader. Something you should consider doing to make your papers better are is the audience, word choice, and purpose. Tone is something that we can’t live without it is in our everyday lives whether it is a college paper or a children’s book.
