Journal #6 - Voice & Tone

Voice and tone are both really important pieces of writing. Voice was one of the six traits of writing that teachers in high school even looked for. Having voice in a paper is essential because it lets the reader know your attitude and thoughts about a subject. Also when your paper has voice the readers can almost hear your style of talking through your writing. It is important to not try to sound like someone you are not. As Mr. Wermers mentioned in class we shouldn’t try to just sound smarter in our papers because we think it sounds good, but rather it is better to just write with the normal style we normally would, and therefore be more informal in our writing. Tone is very similar to voice, and the tone is specifically the way in which you express your writing. Depending upon the topic and the reader your tone and voice may be different, however always try to sound like yourself.

To develop proper voice and tone first the situation you are writing about must be assessed. When writing a letter to a friend you are obviously going to have a much different tone than if you are writing a college acceptance letter. One must be must more formal than the other. Voice and tone can be compared to actual speaking in that we adjust the volume and pitch of our voice, our writing must also be tuned to fit the situation. Some people might think that voice and tone really isn’t that important when writing, but the reality is that it is much more important than we may think it should be. Just as we all will write this journal post differently voice is important in separating peoples styles of writing and in determining peoples opinions.

Some helpful hints I can think of for striking the proper tone in writing are to sound confident and research on topics so you know the situation before writing about it. Another helpful hint is just don’t over think writing. I think sometimes when we are writing we get so wrapped up in trying to sound smart and to portray the best argument that we actually wind up not sounding very intelligent and our writing seems to be a bit jumbled. When writing the first draft I would say to just get your ideas on paper, without thinking about grammar or how you sound, because those things can always be changed later. Once the first draft is complete then go back and change all the little errors you may not have caught when simply writing your paper. Re-read your paper and determine the voice you used in your paper. Often this will be the voice you want to portray to your reader, because it is coming straight from how you feel about a subject. If this isn’t the proper tone then you can change it accordingly. Another helpful hint would be just make sure in papers you don’t contradict yourself. I know this however is easier said than done, because I have done this many times in my papers, but one of the ways to sound the best is simply to not contradict yourself. Hopefully these are some helpful tips, but I look forward to seeing the class's ideas about how to develop the proper voice and tone in papers.