The tone of a message often affects us unconsciously. We respond positively to a friendly email, and negatively to a harsh one. The ability to control and change tone is a demanding task even for an advanced writer. Tone sneaks into a new text from previous messages or existing documents: we like to speak about issues with the same tone as before. Government documents, for example, favor a formal and distant tone, which is often considered to be the proper or official way of speaking.
How do we react to organizations based on tone? The Nielsen Norman Group looked at how a change in tone on a website affected a visitor’s impression of the organization. They varied the tone in four dimensions: funny to serious, casual to informal, irreverent to respectful, and enthusiastic to matter-of fact. According to the study, an organization’s image improved most with a casual, conversational, and moderately enthusiastic tone.
If we want to improve the image of government, we should evaluate official documents on the basis of their tone of voice.