Whether we are editing English for clients or writing original copy for them, we have noticed we are often asked the same questions. So we have gathered up the five most common ones and asked our Senior Copywriter and Editor Paul Murphy to answer them for us.
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How do you set the tone of your writing?
One of the key elements of ‘tone’, particularly in establishing the level of formality, is how personal or impersonal your writing sounds. It is a convention in the West that business and academic writing should be very formal, and hence very impersonal: the first person – I, we, my, our – is only used rarely, in special circumstances; the second person – you, your – is hardly used at all. Instead, we use a lot of passive verb forms, or adjectives derived from passive verbs.
Let me give you some examples of what I mean.
“The order was not delivered on time” (passive verb) is less confrontational than “You failed to make the delivery on time” (active verb with personal pronoun – pointing the finger of blame); we are not directly criticising the person we are writing to, but are allowing for the possibility that something may have gone wrong that was outside of their control.
Similarly, “These results are unacceptable” (adjective derived from passive verb) may sound just a little less angry than “We cannot accept these results” (active verb with personal pronoun – underlining how strongly we feel about the issue).
In extremely formal language – the kind lawyers use – we may try to eliminate all personal pronouns from our writing and employ impersonal constructions instead. Lawyers never like to say they are sorry: they prefer “It is regretted that…” to “We regret that…” For most people, this is taking the impersonal tone a bit too far.
Creating a sense of conversation
By contrast, using ‘I’ (or we) and ‘you’ a lot in your writing creates the sense of a conversation, a direct interaction between the writer and the audience – between the writer and each individual member of the audience. This is much more informal, a more relaxed and friendly tone, which is usually preferred in advertising copy.
Website copy needs particular care
In certain types of marketing communications, it can be difficult to strike a balance between the informal and the formal, the personal and the impersonal. Website copy can be a particular problem. Many companies are anxious about their website’s importance as their ‘public face’, and so want to keep things fairly formal. Very often their web copy is simply adapted from their existing hard copy promotional materials. However, materials like this – a company prospectus or a press release on a new product – are produced in limited quantities for a very specific audience, and the company controls their distribution.
Writing for a global audience
A website, on the other hand, can reach anyone; therefore, the level of jargon in web copy should probably be greatly reduced, and a more informal and personal tone may be appropriate, at least for some parts of the site.
How do you deal with writing about something negative?
English has such a rich vocabulary that it provides wonderful opportunities to create euphemisms – which means saying something bad in a good way. For instance, the business press might be calling your latest product launch “disastrous”, but you would probably prefer to describe it as “very disappointing”. That is still negative, but it does not sound nearly so bad: first, because you are measuring performance against a vague benchmark of your optimistic expectations rather than the identifiable break-even point on the company’s balance sheet; and second, because you are focusing on your emotional response to the situation, and so subtly shifting attention away from the hard facts and figures.
Putting a positive spin on bad news
You need to be careful with euphemisms, though. If euphemistic writing is overused or done crudely, it can seem evasive or dishonest, and that will only draw more attention to your negative news.
In dealing with bad news, the most important thing is to appear sincerely apologetic about any mistakes you may have made, and deeply concerned about their consequences for others. You put a ‘positive spin’ on the news by emphasising your efforts to discover what went wrong and how you are going to put things right, not by trying to deny or minimise your fault or by trying to shift the blame elsewhere.
This is part one of a two-part post, the other two questions relating to the tone of your writing and handling difficult topics can be found here.
Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video & geezaweezer via photopin cc
About the Author: Paul moved to China ten years ago, where he worked at first as a university teacher and a business trainer. However, he soon began to find work editing and polishing Chinese-to-English translations for academic journals, and later expanded into original copy writing for business information services, management consultancies, and PR firms.
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