Tone and styles

Identifying Purpose and Tone

The author also has his own purpose for writing the passage, and typically conveys the ideas
he wants to convey by using a particular tonesomething that gives us an insight into
his/her attitude and feeling.
There are three common purposes for writing any piece:
1) Informative/Descriptive Writing This type of writing is one whose objective is to
inform / teach the reader about a subject, an event, a process or an issue.
Informative Descriptive Writing is the most common purpose of writing. It can be in
two forms:
(a) Narratives (informing in a narrative fashion, the outlines of an event/happening) or
(b) Informative Articles: (Articles informing about the various dimensions of an issue.)
Writers writing with the purpose of informing/ teaching normally stick to facts and verifiable
information. In such writing, the facts are presented as part of the main idea structure,
while the supporting details are in the form of examples, illustrations, parallelisms and
contrasts. Opinions are mostly conspicuous by their absence in such writing.

An analysis of the various passages of the CAT paper of the past few years will clearly show
you that the CAT (and indeed all other Management entrance exams) are filled with
passages that can be classified as informative writing.
The passages on Derrida's work (Passage II of the ; CAT 2005 paper solved in the
chapter on solved CAT passages) and on Game theory (Passage I of the CAT 2005 paper
solved in the chapter on solved CAT passages)in the CAT 2005 paper are examples of
informative writing. Similarly, the CAT 2003 paper had four of the five passages that could
be classified as primarily descriptive passages: As given in the chapter on Solved CAT
passages they appear as: Passage 1 (Topic: Panchayati Raj Institutions), Passage 2 (Greek
Architecture), Passage 4 (Education in the twelfth century) and Passage 5 (Development of
Aviation).

Hence, as an aspirant, your focus should be on improving your ability to convert factual
informative writing into symbols and pictures inside your mind.
2) To Persuade This is another common purpose of writing.
Such writing is opinion driven and has the primary purpose of convincing the reader about
the author's point of view.
However, there is a fair sprinkling of facts on which writers draw upon to support their point
of view and convince the reader about the same. Hence, such writing contains a mixture of
facts (which act as supporting details) and opinions (which give the main ideas of the
passage). The bias towards one opinion is clearly reflected in such writingsince all the
facts presented as supporting details are normally in favor of the author's opinion. Words

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such as should, must, ought to, need to, etc. are clear giveaways of persuasive writing since
they are clear indicators of the author's opinion.

Like Informative writing, persuasive writing is also commonly used in CAT and Management
entrance passages.
In the context of the CAT 2005 paper the passage starting with the words 'Crjnolene
and croquet are out' (Passage III of the CAT 2005 paper, solved in the next chapter on solved
CAT passages) and the passage on Straddlers starting with the words 'When I was in class in
Columbia' (passage 4 of the CAT 2003 paper in the next chapter on solved CAT passages) can
be classified under this type of writing.
3. To Amuse/Entertain Another common purpose of writing is to lighten up the reader by
amusing/entertaining him/her. Such writing might be in the form of fictional or non-fictional
writing.
In either case, there is normally satire or adventure involved.
Most leisure reading comes in this category of writing and every newspaper worth
it's name has satirical articles with the sole aim of entertaining the reader.
However, for some reason, Management entrance exams have kept off such writing
for the extracts they use to form their questions.
As a student of English, we would encourage you to find writing of each of the three
types mentioned above in your day to day reading.
Tone We now move to the Tone of the author:
The tone of an article indicates the author's predisposition towards the subject. By
identifying the tone of the author, we can judge his/her attitude/emotional standing
towards the subject.
This helps us improve our predictions for questions which go beyond the boundaries
of the passage.
The author of any piece of writing gives a fair view of the tone of the passage
through the words and the details used in expressing his ideas. Hence, the tone is decoded
through the words and the details that the author uses in his writing.
Especially concentrate on the kinds of adjectives and adverbs the author uses while
trying to identify the tone of the passage.
The tone of the author can be identified by making a mental list of the adjectives and
adverbs he/she uses. Words such as:
Little, lovely, plain, exquisite, beautiful,
incongruent, depressing, disgusting, bright,
optimistic, factually, neutral, doubtful, surely,
serious, grim, joyous, playful, sympathetic,

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nice, intransigent, flexible, tragic, happy, sad,

delightful, delicious, inane, etc.
Depending on the basis of the adjectives/ adverbs used, as well as by the force with which
they are used, we can get hints about the author's emotional orientation towards the topic.
Some examples of tone, with their cue words are given as follows:

Tone Types of Words Signifying the Tone

Critical Words with a negative meaning such as incongruent,

depressing, disgusting, doubtful, grim, etc.
Humorous Words and situations with irony, punch lines and double
meanings.
Disappointed Words with a negative connotationused in a lesser degree
than in a critical or a depressing tone

Other examples of tones are factual, analytical, critical, disparaging, tolerant,

neutral, hopeful, matter of fact, admiring, nostalgic, regretful, amused, arrogant, etc. As an
aspirant for competitive exams, you should try to develop a sense of identifying the author's
tone while reading a passage.

1) Style and Tonality of a Passage These questions are based on the language used in
the passage. The most common question under this type is the one where you might
be asked to describe the author's tone in the passage with options like'critical',
'supportive' 'enthusiastic', 'pragmatic', 'analytical', 'narrative', etc.
In order to answer such questions, you need to look for the language that is common
to the entire passage. Remember the famous English saying-"One swallow does
not a summer make." Similarly, one or even a few words of criticism do not make the
tone of the passage critical.
Only a tone that is consistently present in each and every paragraph of the passage
can be defined as the tone of the passage. You might also be asked to infer the
author's attitude towards an idea, a fact, or a situation from the words that he or she
uses to describe it.
At times, these questions may also ask about the kind of source that the passage was
probably drawn from, for what kind of audience was the passage written and so
forth. Tonal questions are answered by discerning the use of words as well as the
reason for the use of words in a passage. In order to deduce the answer to such
questions you need to go beyond the literal meanings of the words used in the
passage.

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Tone and styles

Do not guess while solving global questions. Guesses do not work since you
cannot answer these questions unless you have created a photocopy of the
author's idea structure into your own mind.

Answering global questions correctly gives us confidence since it allows us to

verify our overall view of the author's purpose and plan.

If you have read the passage using the reading skills mentioned above and
throughout the last section, global questions are easy and sure marks.

Confirmation of your opinions through solving global questions, makes the

solving of specific questions easier.

How to detect tone of the passage?

Detecting the tone of a story is similar to picking up on tone of voice. It's not what is being
said or done it's a matter of how. According to the Literary Terms & Poetry Glossary, tone
is "the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice
that expresses meaning. Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly
endless. Often a single adjective will not be enough, and tone may change from chapter to
chapter or even line to line. Tone is the result of allusion, diction, figurative language,
imagery, irony, symbol, syntax, style, and so on."

Sounds overwhelming? One trick that may help you figure out the tone of the story that
you're reading is to imagine a key scene from the story as a movie. What sort of music
would be playing in the background? Do you imagine something dark and moody, light and
peppy, somber and thoughtful? Music is a tool often used in movies to emphasize tone.

As the definition above indicates, writers use words to set the tone. Take a look at the
descriptions in your story. A story with a dark, ominous tone will probably have more
negative descriptions than a light, happy comedy. A story with a suspenseful, adventurous
tone will probably have lots of short sentences and brief, matter-of-fact descriptions. A sad,
romantic story will often have long, detailed, sentimental descriptions. Try to visualize the
scene and hear the characters voices as you read, and you'll be able to pick out the tone in
no time. (Cue the triumphant music!)

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