What is tone in writing?
Tone is the attitude your words carry: formal or relaxed, warm or distant, polite or blunt. The same message can be correct in grammar and still wrong in tone, such as a casual "Hey, send me the file" in an email to a hiring manager.
The three tones
| Tone | Use it for | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Formal | Cover letters, official emails, complaints, academic correspondence | No contractions or slang, complete sentences, polite forms of address |
| Office | Everyday work emails, Slack and Teams updates, client replies | Polite and to the point, relaxed but not stiff, like a good work email |
| Casual | Messages to friends, captions, informal posts | Warm, everyday wording that is easy to read and stays polite |
Which tone fits which situation?
- First contact with a recruiter, professor or official body: Formal.
- Colleagues and clients you already know: Office.
- Friends, family and social posts: Casual.
- Not sure? Pick the more formal option. Being slightly too polite costs less than being too casual.
What the tool will not do
It changes how you say something, not what you say. It is told to keep facts, names and numbers, but you must still read the result. In particular check:
- Greetings and titles: the tool cannot know whether to write Dr Smith or Ms Smith.
- Dates, amounts and deadlines.
- Phrases with a legal or contractual meaning, which should not be reworded without care.
Tone detection, which tells you how your text currently sounds, is a different job and is not part of this tool.
Tone and the rest of your edit
Fix errors first with the Grammar Checker, then change the tone. If the sentences themselves are tangled, the Sentence Rewriter in Formal mode handles clarity and register together. For a full rewrite with new wording, use the Paraphrasing Tool.
Each run takes up to 6,000 characters, around 900 English words. For longer documents, work section by section so the tone stays consistent.