"Tone, Style, Register, and Voice: Their Role in U.S. Business Writing"

US business writing is widely perceived of as “direct” and “straightforward.” While this is generally true compared with other written genres and business writing in many other cultures, the formality and directness of business writing varies depending on your readers, the subject matter, the purpose of the document, and the situation.

At the conclusion of this workshop, participants should be able to:

• Understand and differentiate the concepts tone, style, register, and voice and the role of each in business writing
• Understand the impact of context (audience, purpose, subject matter) on tone and register
• Differentiate the features and contexts of use of formal and informal business writing
• Demonstrate the use of indirect speech patterns for making requests and recommendations
• Use word choice and sentence structure to manipulate tone, register, and explicitness of meaning
• Use nondiscriminatory language in workplace writing