Writing Tone, Style and Voice

Tone of voice

A "tone of voice" is a set of guidelines that define the specific jargon that a company, department, or team has chosen to standardize its written communication. Technical writers establish the tone of the company and the rules for readers' information solutions.

• Use the second-person point of view “you” to address the user.
• Write in imperative form instruction so that “you” is implied but not stated.
• Be informative and clear.
• Use informal, everyday language.
• Be supportive and positive.
• Avoid terms that create hype, for example, “fantastic”, “cool”, etc.
• Avoid slang and jokes.
• Avoid phrases that might be sensitive from a political, cultural, or gender point of view.

Point of view

The point of view is the perspective from which the content or information is developed. The three points of view are as follows:

• First-person?point of view “I, we, me, us, mine and our” (not used in the technical information)
• Second-person?point of view “you” (used in process descriptions and instructions)
• Third-person?point of view, such as objects like “the tool” (used in descriptions). The third-person pronouns indicating gender like "he, she, his or hers" are never used in the technical information

Note: Do not mix the second- and third-person points of view. If you use “you” to address the user throughout your texts and then change it to “the user," the user may get confused that the information applies to somebody else.

Active and Passive voice

When you use the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action, that is, “something does something." When you use the passive voice, the subject receives the action, that is, “something is done."

• Prefer the active voice in technical writing.
• Active voice helps you be more direct and concise.

Passive sentences can make it difficult to determine whether a task is required of a system or a user. Make a passive sentence active if it does not clearly indicate who should perform an action.

Example:

• Do:?Delete the abcd.xml file.
• Do not:?The abcd.xml file is to be deleted.

The passive voice can be used instead of the active voice when knowing who or what performs the action of the verb is unknown, unimportant, or unnecessary.

Example:

• Do: The application generates daily status reports.
• Do not: Status reports are generated daily by the application.

Gender-neutral language

This helps technical writers develop information without being biased towards a particular sex or gender.

• Do not use gender-specific language in technical information like pronouns such as "he, she, his or hers".
• Use second-person imperative or use plurals (users).
• Do not use any combinations such as he/she, s/he, (s)he or his/hers.
• Use "service engineers" rather than "servicemen".

Example:

• Do: Check the logs for errors every hour.
• Do not: The SME must check his logs for errors every hour.