Use Tone Cautiously

Irony

• When you mean the opposite of what you say, you’re employing irony.

• Irony can be an effective tool in expository writing, but you should always consider audience before using it.

• If you overestimate your audience, they might take your words at face value, and the rhetorical effectiveness will be lost.

Sarcasm

• Be even more careful with sarcasm, for a sarcastic tone, even applied lightly, may turn off some readers and make them less receptive to your argument.

• If you truly want to convince, persuade, or inform an audience, use sarcasm sparingly, if at all.

Humor

• Humor can be a good way to connect with your audience, much like a speaker who begins a presentation with a joke.

• In expository writing, however, use humor sparingly and carefully. A joke that misses the mark or isn’t appropriate for your audience will add nothing to your essay and only cast suspicion on your reliability as a writer.

Inflated rhetoric

• Using a lot of big words—or a lot of words, period— won’t make you sound smarter.

• Wordy, unwieldy sentences that “sound” good but don’t have much content will create an empty, bombastic tone that will fail to win over readers or inform them in a useful way.