Flashcard 3 - Critical Reading Flashcard Set for the English Basics

tone

Understanding and identifying an author’s tone is important because the tone can affect the reader. The tone gives the reader insight into a preconceived notion or bias the author has toward a subject. The tone of a text may shift or change through the course of the reading, but tone can generally be described using one-word adjectives. Consider this description of the tone of a piece: “The author’s tone begins as light-hearted because she starts with a funny anecdote but quickly shifts to a serious tone as she presents the gravity of the problem.”