When writing, clarity is essential. If writing is unclear, the reader may become confused or frustrated, which may lead them to stop reading altogether. Using ambiguous words, or words that have more than one meaning, without clarification can make writing unclear.
All writing has a voice, which is often referred to as “tone.” Word choice and order, sentence and paragraph length and even punctuation are all factors that contribute to someone’s tone.
A tone may be authoritative, conversational, scientific, diplomatic and so on. In these examples, note how all are saying essentially the same thing in varying tones:
