Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Managing the Common House

[O3C11N6G (normangauss]

Matt:

I hear that word, "tone", a lot when I receive criticism about my style of 
writing.

Here is a definition of tone:
An expression of a writer's attitude toward a subject. Unlike mood, which is 
intended to shape the reader's emotional response, tone reflects the 
feelings of the writer. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, playful, 
ironic, bitter, or objective.

An alternate term often applied to my writing is "Style".

Here is a definition of style:
The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of 
words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible 
parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, 
plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.

My style is scientific or plain.  To be ornate or emotive is not me.

I specialize in objective writing.  If anyone wants to interpret my comments 
from an emotive, bitter, ironic, or whining perspective, that is their point 
of view, not mine.  Perhaps those people who write mainly to emote or get 
sympathy or share cozy interchanges never think about writing for purely 
objective reasons.  In my experience in engineering school, my friends would 
often lament that engineers are expected to respect and understand the needs 
of non-technical people and be tolerant of them, but the non-technical 
people feel no need and make no effort to try to understand engineers.  In 
my community, if philosophical issues are discussed in meetings, no one has 
a problem with that.  But the minute someone gets into details, whether it 
is technical or financial, glassy eyed looks begin to appear on the faces of 
certain influential people, and they quickly request that these matters not 
be pursued in a general meeting.

This habit of not respecting different styles and forming judgments based on 
what you as a reader want to get out of a piece of writing avoids having to 
read the words as they are written.  If they are factual, then they are 
meant to be facts, and nothing else.  Trying to insert other meanings into 
them is disrespectful of the writer.

Norm G.