Tone
The ‘tone’ of your writing is the way your written voice sounds to the person reading it. This
person is likely to be an educated adult, such as a parent, head teacher, editor, MP or
perhaps someone your age.
You need to carefully choose and put across a particular tone of voice if you want your
reader to trust in your writing. This could be friendly, helpful, serious, educated, reliable,
humorous or even sarcastic, but you need to choose wisely.
Students often create an accidentally aggressive tone, which is likely to make your reader
less willing to see your point of view, so that is one tone to try and avoid.

Activity One
These short extracts are all taken from pieces of non-fiction writing. For each, decide on the tone of
voice created and pick out two features of the sentence that creates the tone you’ve chosen.
Some tone words to help:
Angered Concerned Friendly Doubtful/Dubious Hopeful
Enthusiastic Sarcastic Humorous Supportive Aggressive
Thoughtful Academic Alarmed Encouraging Serious

1. Am I the only one who’s terrified about the warm weather? The UK’s unseasonable weather,
dubbed ‘glorious by a complacent press, feels like a sign that something is horribly, horribly wrong.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.

2. Seven fire crews were tackling a huge blaze at Saddleworth Moor near Manchester last
night. It started at 7.30pm and quickly spread to cover 247 acres, forcing the closure of the A62. Firefighters also battled a blaze in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, yesterday as unprecedented February weather saw fires break out around the country
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.

3. Ahhh, come here, my girl, let me give you a hug. And an ibruprofen. Science shows pain relievers work on emotional as well as physical pain. A glass of Moët is also effective, of course. There are only about 500 years of research proving that when love arrives, we expect champagne. When love goes, we need it.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.

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floor at Nuffield Health Guildford, investing in the latest state-of-the-art Technogym equipment to help you focus on your goals. Change the way you train forever and discover a gym built around you. Join us today and you’ll get our best joiner offer.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.

1. Am I the only one who’s terrified about the warm weather? The UK’s unseasonable weather,
dubbed ‘glorious by a complacent press, feels like a sign that something is horribly, horribly
wrong.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.
2. Seven fire crews were tackling a huge blaze at Saddleworth Moor near Manchester last
night. It started at 7.30pm and quickly spread to cover 247 acres, forcing the closure of the
A62. Firefighters also battled a blaze in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, yesterday as
unprecedented February weather saw fires break out around the country
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.
3. Ahhh, come here, my girl, let me give you a hug. And an ibruprofen. Science shows pain
relievers work on emotional as well as physical pain. A glass of Moët is also effective, of
course. There are only about 500 years of research proving that when love arrives, we
expect champagne. When love goes, we need it.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.
4. Hi there! We’ve been busy…We have re-imagined, reconfigured and transformed the gym
floor at Nuffield Health Guildford, investing in the latest state-of-the-art Technogym
equipment to help you focus on your goals. Change the way you train forever and discover a
gym built around you. Join us today and you’ll get our best joiner offer.
Tone:
Ways Tone is Created:
a.
b.

Activity 4: Read this except from an open letter to Theresa May. It was written by an individual on their selfpublished blog.
1. How would you describe the general tone of voice they’ve created?
2. Highlight any points at which you feel their credibility has been reduced and annotate with why.
Dear Theresa,
One of the only arguments I’ve actually heard anyone actually make in favour of your last-minute
shambles of a Brexit proposal is that we need to forget that you are a cold-hearted, ruthless, and selfserving Tory and back your Brexit proposal because it wouldn’t be as economically damaging as a “no
deal” flounce out of the EU.
This argument has a kernel of truth because the economic chaos of a “no deal” meltdown would
undoubtedly be worse than the illogical and almost universally unpopular mess you and your Tory
mates have cobbled together.
And we all know that under Tory rule it would be the poor and vulnerable who would be forced to
suffer the costs of a “no deal” meltdown (while your mates Rees-Mogg, Redwood and mega-rich
speculator class who bankroll your party would actually cash in on the crisis they created by
speculating against Britain).
Just look at the way you lot callously loaded the burden of austerity dogma onto poor and ordinary
people as you simultaneously lavished tax cuts and handouts on your mega-rich mates (you know the
ones who bankroll your party).
But then there are four gaping flaws this argument that ‘we should all pull together and back your
rubbish deal because “no deal” would be worse