PAPER LEVEL
THE MECHANICS OF STYLE 4
FIRST YEAR SERIES
WRITING CENTER
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
 How can you sound professional…
 without sounding like a college student trying to sound smart?
 How can you sound savvy…
 without sounding irresponsible?
 Tone
GUIDED PRACTICE
 Where does the writer lose a professional tone here? Note that Dr. Chen’s language is in quotation marks.
 After being “stuck, cut, coughed on, scratched, and splashed on” when treating patients, Dr. Pauline Chen reveals
that she “feels the floor fall away” each and every time in sheer terror of the consequences. All doctors surely feel
this same fear, wondering when their luck will run out and a deadly disease transmission will seal their fate.
However, Dr. Chen always comes to the same conclusion: she “consented to an unspoken contract with the
public” to take care of patients no matter how awful the risk because, above all, “it’s a privilege, a calling, to take
care of patients” (Chen, 2009).
GUIDED PRACTICE
After being “stuck, cut, coughed on, scratched, and splashed on” when treating patients, Dr. Pauline Chen reveals
that she “feels the floor fall away” each and every time in sheer terror of the consequences. All doctors surely
feel this same fear, wondering when their luck will run out and a deadly disease transmission will seal their fate.
However, Dr. Chen always comes to the same conclusion: she “consented to an unspoken contract with the
public” to take care of patients no matter how awful the risk because, above all, “it’s a privilege, a calling, to take
care of patients” (Chen, 2009).
GUIDED PRACTICE
A version with more consistent tone:
Even after being “stuck, cut, coughed on, scratched, and splashed on” when treating patients, Dr. Pauline Chen
still “feels the floor fall away” every time she thinks about the potential consequences. All doctors face similar
situations, knowing that a patient may transmit a disease. Dr. Chen, though, views it this way: she “consented to
an unspoken contract with the public” to take care of patients no matter the risk. In fact, “it’s a privilege, a
calling” (Chen, 2009).
GUIDED PRACTICE
What is the tone here? How is that tone conveyed?
1. Grilled lohi, finished with orange gastrique, Garrotxa, and niçoises.
2.
3.
An appreciation of the effects of calcium blockers can best be
attained by an understanding of the activation of muscle groups.
#22
Last 7 days
IP
13.2
H R ER BB
SO WHIP
7
19
4
4
5
0.88
4. Makers of texts know that readers need external semiotic cues.
GUIDED PRACTICE
1a.
Grilled lohi, finished with orange gastrique, Garrotxa, and niçoises.
1b.
Once you’ve got your salmon off the grill and plated, throw on the orange sauce and
some crumbly cheese. Our go-to cheese is Garrotxa, a sheep’s milk concoction from
Spain. Top it off with a few sliced olives. If you’re looking for some out-of-the-ordinary
olives, try niçoises.
2a.
An appreciation of the effects of calcium blockers can best be attained by an
understanding of the activation of muscle groups.
2b.
Our muscles work by contracting, and the contraction of muscle depends on calcium. If
we can understand how calcium activates our muscle groups to make them contract, then
we can appreciate how those muscle groups are affected by the drugs called calcium
blockers.
GUIDED PRACTICE
3a.
#22
Last 7 days
3b.
IP
13.2
H R ER BB
SO WHIP
7 4
19
4
5
0.88
In the last 7 days, the Dodgers’ #22, Clayton Kershaw, has pitched 13.2
innings, given up 4 earned runs on 7 hits, walked 5 batters, and struck out 19.
If you take that number of walks-plus-hits and divide it by his number of
innings, you’ll notice it’s 0.88: on average, per inning, he’s allowed less than
one runner on base.
GUIDED PRACTICE
4a.
Makers of texts know that readers need external semiotic cues.
4b.
Authors, editors, publishers, and illustrators create a book—but they know that
readers rely on many surrounding signs in making make sense of that book.
Everything—from the style of the cover art to the section where the bookstore chooses
to display it—helps give readers a set of expectations. Contextual cues give us
mental “baskets” for sorting out the information we’re about to read.
GUIDED PRACTICE
Technical terms can lend your writing an air of authority—but only when they’re used appropriately.
The reason they exist is to allow professionals to convey complex or precise information quickly.
But because even your own colleagues may not know or care about your specific problem,
anchor your technical terms to more general words that we all recognize.
Example:
In the 1990s, slimming products containing Chinese herbs were sold in Belgium as “traditional herbal
medicines.” The main herb used in making them was Stephania tetrandra. In Chinese, the name for
Stephania is very similar to the name for Aristolochia fangchi. Aristolochia contains aristolochic acid.
This acid causes endemic nephropathy with permanent kidney damage and end-stage kidney failure.
After medical dangers were associated with the herbal supplements, the International Agency of
Research on Cancer classified Aristolochia as a human carcinogen (Dietz, 588).
ARTIFACT-BASED PRACTICE
 How is the tone in your own writing?
WORKSHOP SUMMARY
 Take out any technical terms that are just there to “sound smart.”
 Use technical terms as needed to convey complex or precise information in shorthand. Consider anchoring these
technical terms by giving the reader a more general term first for context. HerbsAristolochia
 Take out any “dramatic” language (unless it’s evidence – an exact quote from an authoritative source).
 Cite evidence—and trust it.