WRITING TIPS LESSON
APTS Lesson: Tone & Register
When we discuss tone and register, we must first know the context
including the audience, purpose, and style for the document. Normally
the terms used for tone are informal, semi-formal, and formal. Other terms
include academic, business, personal, comic, lighthearted, ponderous,
etc.
Register refers to a combination of tone and appropriate word choices. The terms to describe register are subjective and imprecise. The terms include low, medium, and high.
Notice in the following three examples how an informal tone can be used to impart the same content while differing registers are employed. .
Example #1 Low Register--A football player discusses the game in the locker room with his teammates. [The script of what he says can rest in your imagination. ]
Example #2 Medium Register--A football player finishes dressing and goes back to his room to call his mother to tell her about the game. Certainly he would use a register something like this, "Wow, mom, I creamed Harry from Somewhere University! I really got him back for him playing dirty on me last year."
Example #3 High Register--A football player writes about the game for a writing project to describe an emotional moment. Certainly he would use a register something like this, "On Saturday, I finally achieved revenge on my football arch rival, Harry from Somewhere University."
In coursework, students are expected to write with a semi-formal to formal academic tone and a high register. Thus students will avoid the practices of informal tone such as unnecessary first person, generic second person, slang, contractions, clichès, and invective (ranting). A formal-but-not-stitled tone is most often expected in the workplace.
Avoid Unnecessary First Person
I believe; I think
The rebuttal to such expressions is that you do not believe or think. Avoid the wordiness of such expressions and just state your point. Reserve first person for examples of personal experience. However, avoid convoluted attempts to get around using it, e.g. This one thinks; The author of this report suggests
Avoid Generic Second Person and Royal Third Person
You can see; as you might think
We know, for instance; certainly we can conclude
The generic you implies a laziness in terms of audience awareness and thus audience respect. Use the second person only for documents where the audience is named and directly addressed. The royal third person is dangerous if the audience members do not consider themselves to be one of your group.. Avoid expressions that include your audience if they do not consider themselves members.
Register refers to a combination of tone and appropriate word choices. The terms to describe register are subjective and imprecise. The terms include low, medium, and high.
Notice in the following three examples how an informal tone can be used to impart the same content while differing registers are employed. .
Example #1 Low Register--A football player discusses the game in the locker room with his teammates. [The script of what he says can rest in your imagination. ]
Example #2 Medium Register--A football player finishes dressing and goes back to his room to call his mother to tell her about the game. Certainly he would use a register something like this, "Wow, mom, I creamed Harry from Somewhere University! I really got him back for him playing dirty on me last year."
Example #3 High Register--A football player writes about the game for a writing project to describe an emotional moment. Certainly he would use a register something like this, "On Saturday, I finally achieved revenge on my football arch rival, Harry from Somewhere University."
In coursework, students are expected to write with a semi-formal to formal academic tone and a high register. Thus students will avoid the practices of informal tone such as unnecessary first person, generic second person, slang, contractions, clichès, and invective (ranting). A formal-but-not-stitled tone is most often expected in the workplace.
Avoid Unnecessary First Person
I believe; I think
The rebuttal to such expressions is that you do not believe or think. Avoid the wordiness of such expressions and just state your point. Reserve first person for examples of personal experience. However, avoid convoluted attempts to get around using it, e.g. This one thinks; The author of this report suggests
Avoid Generic Second Person and Royal Third Person
You can see; as you might think
We know, for instance; certainly we can conclude
The generic you implies a laziness in terms of audience awareness and thus audience respect. Use the second person only for documents where the audience is named and directly addressed. The royal third person is dangerous if the audience members do not consider themselves to be one of your group.. Avoid expressions that include your audience if they do not consider themselves members.
Rodgers' Writing Tips by tips.rhettime.net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Copyright Ida L. Rodgers, 2004
Updated January 16, 2012
Updated January 16, 2012