Tone as a Window into Purpose

Identify an author's tone and explain how it reveals purpose and attitude.

Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject or audience, expressed through word choice, details, and sentence style. Tone words are precise: admiring, critical, sarcastic, urgent, nostalgic, hopeful, skeptical, humorous, matter-of-fact. Identifying tone helps reveal purpose, because an urgent tone suggests a warning or call to action, an admiring tone suggests celebration, and a skeptical tone suggests criticism. Read this original passage: 'Oh, wonderful.

Another 'quick' software update that takes two hours and moves every button I use. Truly, my life is better. ' The words seem positive ('wonderful,' 'better'), but the exaggeration and the quotation marks around 'quick' reveal a sarcastic tone. The author's purpose is to criticize, with humor, how disruptive updates can be. When analyzing tone, name it with a precise word, quote the language that creates it, and explain what it reveals about the author's attitude and purpose.

Avoid vague tone words like 'good' or 'bad. '

• 1Tone is the author's attitude, shown through language
• 2Use precise tone words like sarcastic, urgent, nostalgic
• 3Connect tone to purpose with quoted evidence