CRITERION 6: TONE (typical feedback: hasty, immature, formality, formulaic, proofreading issues, typos, professionalism)
To download my handout on Tone in pdf, click here.

Scholarly writing can take many shapes: there are scholarly blogs, scholarly memoirs, scholarly tweets, scholarly polemics, scholarly critiques of scholarly publications, scholarly comments on undergraduate papers... and each of these requires a different tone.  Some tonal choices are distinctly unscholarly – and thus better suited to non-scholarly situations than a scholarly tone might be.  Using the correct tone is not about knowing some obscure set of stable rules; it is about knowing and thinking through the situation in which your work will be read.

For our purposes, tone is the mood/atmosphere/impression/feel constructed by a piece of writing (usually by means of choices in sentence structure and wording, but regardless of content), which implies the writer’s attitude to and opinion of the subject and audience.  It can vary in many ways, including formality (from casual to formal), authority(from tentative to decisive), and warmth (from intimate to legalistic/clinical).  

In terms of authority, for undergraduate essay writing, it’s generally best to aim for a tone that is decisive (as long as you say only the truth – the truth, in literary studies, will push you back naturally toward a hypothetical tone).  In terms of formality, the proper tonal “attire” is business casual (just like the literal attire for an academic talk): wording and sentence structure that is undeniably professional and mature but not stiff or stilted, and which allows for the free movement of new, complex ideas in clear and direct language.  For warmth, our best writing tends to flow equally well when read aloud – giving the sense that we are present in the room with you as you read.  

DRESS FOR THE OCCASION.  It is just as incorrect to show up to a black-tie event in a ripped t-shirt and Speedo as it is to show up at a high-school beach party in a tuxedo.  You may rightly choose to crash either event, rebelling against their conventions, but it is narcissistic to expect the other event attendees to take you seriously, or hear you out, if you flout their customary rules.  Unless your goal is to destroy conventions and reject etiquettes (sometimes a worthy goal, but not an effective one for convincing an audience about complex ideas), you must adhere to the proper behavior for the space.  If you use the same formulas and “transition words” that you learned in high school, it’s like wearing clothes you’ve grown out of.  If you use overly flowery prose, clever puns, or words that are there because you like the sound of them (not because they are precise), it’s like wearing a funny t-shirt, a fake mustache, a sexily revealing outfit, or a lot of glitter.  If you throw together your paper hastily, or if you miss spelling errors, usage errors, and typographical errors, it’s like showing up to a job interview with your fly open, a big stain on your shirt, pieces of underwear poking out, and so forth.  Not only will you definitely not “get the job,” but your breach of etiquette will also be rightly interpreted as a gesture of disrespect and indifference.   Proofreading is the price of admission to any scholarly discourse.  A late paper is often preferable to a messy one.  Never submit a paper that someone else hasn’t looked over once; never submit a paper when your ability to see details is compromised (i.e. by lack of sleep — nap first, then look over it again).

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.  For every undergraduate paper I assign, I offer a suggested imaginary audience: a group of graduate students and intelligent bloggers who have read your primary subject once, and recently, with full comprehension of its most prominent and basic meanings, but who do not have the text open in front of them.  They have not read your supplemental texts and they have taken related classes, but not your class; they assume that what you are discussing is significant, but not that what you are arguing is true.  This is a good rule of thumb for any undergraduate humanities paper.  

LET’S BREAK THAT DOWN:

a group of graduate students and intelligent bloggers—

So they are not interested in learning anything from you that they can just as easily get by looking at Wikipedia or an online dictionary.  They are not interested in being taught a breadth of material by an undergraduate about a subject they already have studied; they will listen to you eagerly (but suspiciously) if you are arguing something that they did not already know or believe about such a subject.

with full comprehension of its most prominent and basic meanings—

So they do not need to be reminded of anything about your subject that most informed readers already know.  A little summary will result in “yes, we know, get to the point.”   A lot will cause them, rightly, to disregard your thesis entirely.

but who do not have the text open in front of them—

So they will often need you to provide direct quotations, with citations, so they can examine the nuances of wording you’re discussing.

They have not read your supplemental texts—

So they need you to contextualize references to secondary sources, only as much as is necessary to relate them responsibly to your points. 

and they have taken related classes, but not your class—

So they do not care about your ability to parrot back or apply course concepts and will not trust any course concepts without citation.

they assume that what you are discussing is significant—

Because they would not be reading an essay about it otherwise.  Showing that any aspect of your subject is “interesting,” “important,” or “significant” will be painfully redundant: begin with an assumption of significance and get on with analyzing what it signifies.

but not that what you are arguing is true—

Because they would not be reading an essay about it otherwise.  Use flawless logic to prove your points to a doubtful, suspicious audience.