What did you read or watch that surprised, delighted or disappointed you? Why?
There was a lot of useful material in these past two weeks that helped me understand switching up the tone of voice in a piece of writing. In particular, the video called “The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice” was extremely helpful in explaining how to apply the concept, and the accompanying article is great to refer back to when writing.
What I found to be the most useful in the article and video is the sliding scale that illustrates how to capture the right tone of voice while writing. Before reading this material, I only thought about changing the tone of my writing in a one dimensional way. I thought that my writing could be entirely formal or entirely casual. However, the article explains that the tone of your writing can fall somewhere on a scale from formal to casual, from serious to funny, from respectful to irreverent, and from matter-of-fact to enthusiastic.
Here is a visual of the scales from NN Group’s article:
These scales helped me think about writing in a different way, allowing me to consider the grey areas between words describing tone. Additionally, the visual helps me pay attention to several dimensions regarding tone instead of just one. This chart is a great tool that I’ll undoubtedly be using in the weeks to come.
How did the material influence your approach to graded work in the course? Explain.
Before reading this material, I never really thought much about changing my tone of voice when it came to writing. I typically just read an assignment and got to work on researching, outlining, and drafting. Embarrassingly, tone of voice never really seemed like something that was super important to spend a lot of time thinking about. This material, though, gave me some easy ways that I could start to consider tone of voice when writing for school assignments. I don’t think that I’ll overhaul my entire process, but even just thinking about the four dimensions of tone of voice could really elevate my writing and force consistency in my tone.
What was most meaningful for your own career goals? Why?
From the material in the past two weeks, I think the tone of voice scales were meaningful to my goal of working in technical communication. Even now, when I’m writing this blog post, I’m trying to figure out how my tone of voice is different from other work I’ve done, such as research papers and informative guides. In my blog, I can be more casual, less serious, similarly respectful, and more enthusiastic. In a research paper, however, I try to stay formal, serious, respectful, and matter-of-fact.
This change in tone happens almost intuitively because when we’re writing for personal reasons, we tend to know when things need to be more formal or when we’re allowed to be more casual. In college, most of our writing is done in our own voice, regardless of formality or context. Every research paper I’ve written has been in my own voice, and every blog post I’ve written has been in my voice. In a business context, however, we’re expected to be able to write with the company’s voice, not our own. Doing so may be harder than we think. Using a couple of scales to nail down the company’s voice in different contexts will be incredibly helpful when writing in the “real world.”