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Tone refers to the writer's attitude towards their subject matter. Scholarly writers should strive for a clear, objective, and formal tone.
Clear
A clear tone uses simple language that is easily understood by a wide audience.
Objective
An objective tone strives for neutrality, avoiding bias and emotions, while embracing scholarly evidence.
Formal
A formal tone is respectful and courteous. It avoids inflammatory and casual language.
While jargon, cliches, and other metaphorical language can be useful in everyday conversation, they are less helpful in academic writing, which prizes clarity and common understanding.
Cliches are common phrases so often used that they no longer hold meaning. Instead of relying on vague cliches, use direct, literal terms to convey your meaning.
Example: The employees at Mart-Co were hung out to dry.
In this case, hung out to dry is a cliché that provides readers with only a vague understanding of what happened to Mart-Co’s employees. Better: Mart-Co rescinded its employees’ health insurance.
Jargon is terminology specific to a profession or field. As such, it is often difficult for many readers to understand.
Example: To optimize key performance indicators (KPIs), businesses need to leverage synergy across all departments and achieve a seamless customer experience.
Terms like key performance indicators, leverage synergy, and seamless customer experience are familiar to business-minded readers, but a general audience would have trouble deciphering this sentence’s meaning. Better: To improve performance, businesses should focus on effective collaboration and smooth customer interactions.
Metaphors are figures of speech that draw comparisons between unrelated terms, ideas, or objects. While metaphors can be effective descriptors, they also tend to be imprecise and create more work for readers. Instead of using comparisons that readers must spend time unpacking, use specific, precise language.
Example: Bill 726 proved to be a bottomless pit of spending (Smith, 2024).
While bottomless pit does indicate that Bill 726 cost a good deal of money, it would be better to use more precise, specific language. Better: Bill 726 cost taxpayers $16.5 billion over three years (Smith, 2024).
Avoiding absolutes, emotive words, and pejoratives can help you achieve an objective tone.
Avoiding absolutes means being careful of claiming that something is always or never true. Other absolutes include all, everybody, everyone, nobody, no one, and none. Absolute claims are often inaccurate, misleading, or simplistic, and, therefore, they detract from your credibility as a writer.
Example: All U.S. employees prefer the flexibility of remote work.
It’s unlikely that any scientific survey or study would support this claim, and while using absolutes like all might seem like a way to strengthen your case, this strategy can actually weaken your argument, leaving it vulnerable to counterarguments. Instead, use credible evidence to support your claims. Better: According to Jones (2022), many U.S. employees prefer the flexibility of remote work.
Emotive words evoke an emotional reaction in your reader. They indicate the author’s bias or opinion toward their subject matter.
Example: Central Maine Power’s response to Hurricane Ivan was a catastrophic failure with devastating consequences for customers.
The words catastrophic and devastating encourage the reader to feel a certain way about Central Maine Power’s response, instead of allowing them to form their own conclusion. These emotive words also reveal the writer’s opinion about Central Maine Power’s response. Better: Central Maine Power’s response to Hurricane Milton was delayed by understaffing, and millions of customers were left without power.
Pejoratives are words that hold a negative connotation. Like emotive words, they reveal a writer’s bias.
Example: Herman and Dean (2003) surveyed 500 junkies in Southern California.
The word junkies suggests that the writer holds a disparaging view of individuals with heroin addictions. Better: Herman and Dean (2003) surveyed 500 individuals suffering from heroin addiction in Southern California.
Establishing a formal tone is not about using important-sounding words. It’s about avoiding casual, vague language that may not be understood by a general audience.
Words like a lot, really, sort of, and very are common in casual conversation but add little meaning to your scholarly writing. Similarly, using the second-person point of view (you, yours, your, yourself, yourselves) results in a casual tone.
Example: The students were really engaged in the activity.
Really does not refer to a specific quantity, and therefore, it does not add meaning to the sentence. It would be better to use more precise language to describe the students’ engagement. Better: The students enthusiastically participated in the activity by clapping their hands and stomping their feet at the appropriate times.
Slang refers to informal language that may be unique to a specific group and that may not have a standardized definition. Slang, then, is not easily understood by a wide audience.
Example: The nurses were concerned that the patient would be a bounceback.
Someone outside of the medical field may not know that this term is loosely defined as a patient who continually returns to a hospital to receive additional and perhaps unnecessary medical attention. Better: The nurses were concerned that the patient would return in a few days, seeking additional medical treatment.
A contraction is a shortened version of a word or phrase, created by combining two words and removing one or more letters (e.g., can’t, won’t, shouldn’t). As abbreviations, contractions convey an informal tone and should be avoided in scholarly writing:
Example: The sample didn’t include children between the ages of 0-12.
Note that, in addition to being less formal, contractions are more likely to be misread, which could detract from a sentence’s meaning. Better: The sample did not include children between the ages of 0-12.
Tone is the writer’s attitude towards their subject. To achieve a scholarly tone, choose clear, precise, and formal language that will be understood by a wide audience. Avoid complicated jargon, contractions, and cliches, which tend to result in vague writing. Maintain objectivity by avoiding pejoratives, emotive language, and absolutes.
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