英语语法：216 Voice and Tone in Writing

Today, Julie Wildhaber, who trains writers and editors at Yahoo!, will explain what it means when people tell writers to find their voice, and also how to understand the difference between voice and tone in writing.
What Is a Writing Voice?
Voice is the distinct personality, style, or point of view of a piece of writing or any other creative work. Voice is what Simon Cowell is talking about when he tells "American Idol¹" contestants² to make a song their own and not just do a note-for-note karaoke version. Many musicians have played "The Star-Spangled Banner," for instance, but there's a world of difference between the Boston Pops' performance and Jimi Hendrix's, even though the basic melody is the same.
In writing, the New York Times and the New York Post may cover the same story, but their headlines are likely to be quite different. For example, when Ike Turner died, the New York Times had a straightforward³ headline: "Ike Turner, Musician and Songwriter in Duo With Tina Turner, Dies at 76"; whereas the New York Post went for a bad pun: "Ike 'Beats' Tina to Death."
Voice is important because your writing should have as much personality as you do. You've read things that seem to have been written by committee, and it's not a fun experience. A strong voice helps you make every word count, establishes consistency⁴ across your website or body of work, and most importantly helps you grab your readers' attention and establish a relationship with them. You probably have a short list of writers you'll read no matter what their subject, because you like their style so much, and other writers you can't stand because they sound snarky or condescending⁵ or otherwise unappealing to you.
Finding Your Voice
So how do you discover and develop your voice? Start by thinking about these three things:
What you want to communicate about yourself or, if you're writing for a business, about the company's brand. If you asked your readers to describe your copy with a few adjectives, which words would you want them to choose?
The purpose of what you're writing. Should your voice be different for an obituary⁶ than for a movie review? Do you want to inform, entertain, or motivate readers to take action?
Your target audience. Are you writing for kids, professional investors⁷, soccer fans from around the world?
As you think about each of those factors, scribble⁸ down adjectives that might apply to your voice. If you get stuck, consider some qualities that you don't want to convey, like "long-winded" or "snooze worthy⁹" or "arrogant¹⁰." Consider your peers and competitors, too: How will your voice be distinct from theirs?
When you have a substantial list, start to prune¹¹. Delete any descriptors that seem secondary in importance, and see if you can make any words more specific. Many writers might describe their voices as conversational¹², for example, but there's a big difference between conversational on a celebrity¹³ gossip site and conversational on a bank site. Boil your list down to four or five essential descriptors.
How Do You Translate Voice into Words?
The next step is to translate those voice characteristics into writing mechanics. Voice may affect your word choice, sentence and story structure, even your punctuation¹⁴. For example, if you're writing about fashion for tween girls, and you want your voice to be fun, trendy, upbeat, and accessible, then you might want to keep your vocabulary at an eighth-grade level but allow slang and even some made-up words for freshness; you might want to set an attention-span-appropriate word count; and punctuation marks that some people consider too casual, such as exclamation¹⁵ points and ellipses¹⁶, are probably OK in moderation. Create some writing do's and don'ts specific to your voice.
There are a few elements to be careful with: jargon¹⁷, culture-specific references, and humor. If you're speaking to a highly specific readership, like tech fans or grammar geeks, then it may be not only necessary but expected that you'll use insider terminology¹⁸ like "cloud computing¹⁹" or "nonrestrictive clause." But generally speaking, the more diverse your audience, the more you should strive for clarity and simplicity²⁰ and avoid slang, humor that might be misconstrued, and culture-specific references. For instance, baseball-derived slang like "bush league" and "batting average" may be Greek to anyone not from the U.S.
What's the Difference Between Tone and Voice?
One more thing: Some of you may be wondering what the difference is between voice and tone. You could consider tone a subset of voice. If voice is the personality of a story, then tone is the mood. Although lots of writers could describe their voice as funny, the mood of their individual pieces might be dark or biting or silly or sarcastic²¹.
Summary
A strong, well-defined voice is the bridge between you and your audience: It helps your readers understand who you are, and it helps you engage them and keep them coming back for more. Take 20 minutes to define your voice, and you'll never sound like bad karaoke or committee writing.
 

1 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

2 contestants   

n.竞争者，参赛者( contestant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The competition attracted over 500 contestants representing 8 different countries. 这次比赛吸引了代表8个不同国家的500多名参赛者。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency. 两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。

4 consistency   

n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度

参考例句：

• Your behaviour lacks consistency.你的行为缺乏一贯性。
• We appreciate the consistency and stability in China and in Chinese politics.我们赞赏中国及其政策的连续性和稳定性。

5 condescending   

adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的

参考例句：

• He has a condescending attitude towards women. 他对女性总是居高临下。
• He tends to adopt a condescending manner when talking to young women. 和年轻女子说话时，他喜欢摆出一副高高在上的姿态。

6 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

7 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

8 scribble   

v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文

参考例句：

• She can't write yet,but she loves to scribble with a pencil.她现在还不会写字，但她喜欢用铅笔乱涂。
• I can't read this scribble.我看不懂这种潦草的字。

9 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

10 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

11 prune   

n.酶干；vt.修剪，砍掉，削减；vi.删除

参考例句：

• Will you prune away the unnecessary adjectives in the passage?把这段文字中不必要的形容词删去好吗？
• It is our job to prune the side branches of these trees.我们的工作就是修剪这些树的侧枝。

12 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

13 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

14 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。

15 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

16 ellipses   

n.椭园，省略号；椭圆( ellipse的名词复数 )；（语法结构上的）省略( ellipsis的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The planets move around the sun in ellipses. 各行星围绕太阳按椭圆形运转。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Summations are almost invariably indicated ellipses instead of the more prevalent sigma notation. 在表示“连加”的式子中，几乎一成不变地使用省略号来代替更为流行的“∑”符号。 来自辞典例句

17 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

18 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

19 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

20 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

21 sarcastic   

adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的

参考例句：

• I squashed him with a sarcastic remark.我说了一句讽刺的话把他给镇住了。
• She poked fun at people's shortcomings with sarcastic remarks.她冷嘲热讽地拿别人的缺点开玩笑。