22 How Do You Identify the Writer’s Tone?

A writer can use an objective or a subjective tone.  A subjective tone is often a clue that the writer is being one-sided or biased. A subjective tone is most often found in personal essays, autobiographies, and editorial sections of newspaper outlets where journalist express their personal opinion about a topic or a news event. An objective tone is often a clue that the writer is being unbiased. This tone is most often found in textbooks, researched scholarly journals or articles, and news reports. The personal opinion of the writer is not included.

Subjective Writing:

• An analysis of the facts or an event
• Based on personal experience of the writer
• Thoughts, feelings, judgments
• Connotative language/ Loaded words
• One-sided; biased
• Main purpose; to persuade

Objective Writing:

• Facts, definitions, events only
• No expression of personal experience of the writer
• No evidence of judgments
• Straightforward tone
• Unbiased; both sides presented
• Main purpose: to inform

Much of what you read will have a combination of objective and subjective language. A writer can still be biased while taking an objective tone.  As you use your synthesizing and analyzing skills to critically think, you will become more and more accustomed to recognizing whether an author is biased, unbiased, or somewhere in between.