Formal Tone
On Thursday, 5/14/15, sixth grade writers evaluated two writing pieces by the same writer to
distinguish one as informal and the other as formal. From these observations, the writers developed
the following checklist to help guide revisions for establishing and maintaining a formal tone
throughout their persuasive essay.
Formal Tone = Writing sounds as if you are a professional expert on the topic
Informal Tone = Writing sounds as if you are talking to you best friend
When writers create a formal tone, they:

Write in complete sentences

Use appropriate transitions to guide readers to their reasons and examples/evidence

Apply appropriate punctuation
o No exaggerated or overused exclamation points (!!!!)

Write out full words instead of using abbreviations
o TV = television

Apply expert terminology about the topic

Apply powerful word choice

Avoid first person (I, me, my) and you/your

Avoid using contractions
o can't => cannot
o won’t => will not
o don’t => do not
o shouldn’t => should not

Avoid slang terms
o Cool
o Kids
o Crazy

Avoid vague words
o Stuff
o Thing

Cite their sources properly (capitalization, formatting, and spelling)
Name: _________________________________ Block: _____
Unit 6: Research-Based Persuasive Writing
Editing for Publication
Directions: Use the checklist below to help guide your editing work for capitalization, usage,
punctuation, and spelling. Once you have completed your color-coded evaluation, consider making
corrections to fix the errors within your writing piece.
Editing Work
Editing Lens
With a pink marker, circle the first
word of each sentence.

Is the first word capitalized?
With a pencil, circle any months,
names of specific people, places,
and organizations, and titles.

Are they correctly capitalized?

Are they formatted correctly?
Newspaper or Magazine: italics
Article: “Quotation Marks”
Video: “Quotation Marks”
Website: Name of site.com

Is there an ending punctuation
mark?

Is the punctuation mark
appropriate for the type of
sentence made?
With an orange pencil, box any
commas used within your
sentences.

Are the commas used
appropriately?
With a red pen, circle any word
or name of a person you are not
100% sure is spelled correctly.
Watch out for homophones!

Are they spelled correctly? Use a
dictionary or dictionary.com to
check!
With a yellow highlighter,
highlight any sentence that does
not make sense. (Fragment/runon)


Is a word missing in your sentence?
Is it too long? Can it be separated
into two strong sentences?
Paragraph Check:



Clear indent?
3-7 sentences? (Intro/Conclusion)
5-12 sentences? (Body)
With a blue pen, underline the
title of an article or website
referenced by the writer.
With a green pencil, box the end
punctuation of each sentence.
I
B1
B2
B3
C