"OGJ editors edit only when necessary to meet our standards for style and tone."
That sentence appears in a document entitled Guidelines for Contributors to Oil & Gas Journal, written—obviously—to help prospective authors from outside the staff prepare and submit manuscripts.
So what's tone?
The possibility exists that technical professionals contemplating articles for OGJ have forgotten the lesson on tone from whatever literature courses their universities forced them to take. This lapse, for writers of important articles, need not be fatal. A theoretical exception might be the manuscript with tone so irreparably wrong that editors reject it on sight. The article that makes the reader feel like the object of a sales pitch leaps to mind.
But for an otherwise publishable article for which tone is awry, editors happily perform the needed repair. They go to the trouble because tone is important.
Why this is so reveals much about Oil & Gas Journal.
The writer's attitude
Tone is what characteristics of writing, such as diction, phrasing, and approach, reveal about the writer's attitude—genuine or affected—toward his or her subject.
For example, instructions on how to perform a simple task—bolting together two metal plates—can be written many ways, each with a distinct tone.
Here are the instructions with a tone that might be described as breezy:
Fastening metal plates together is easy. First, you line up the holes you'll find along the corners. Then you slip the bolt through the holes, set the nut on the threaded end, and start turning it to the right with your fingers. You keep turning the nut until it touches the plate. Make it as tight as you can. But don't dare stop there. Use a wrench to make it really snug. Do the same thing on each corner.
The writer here seems to take the subject seriously—but perhaps not the reader. Some writers try too hard to be conversational, like this:
So you want to make a steel sandwich? Hey, no problem. Slap those plates together, find a hole you can see through, and shove in a bolt. Put a nut on the narrow end, and twist that puppy right-ways to where you can't turn it with your fingers anymore. Then grab it with a wrench and twist some more. Fun—right? Do it again on every corner.
Breeziness thus becomes whimsical, and the reader has good reason to wonder whether the writer can be trusted.
Here's the same message written with a more-serious tone:
Carefully position the plates to align holes located in each corner. Into each aligned hole, insert the threaded end of a bolt. Holding the bolt's head against the metal plate, set the nut atop the opposite, threaded end, and begin manually turning clockwise. Continue until the nut is finger-tight. Slide a wrench of appropriate size onto the bolt and turn further to finish tightening.
A writer uncomfortable with the second person—that is, when the subject is "you," stated or otherwise—might strain for a more-formal tone, like this:
The operator fastens plates together with bolts and nuts. At each corner of the plate, predrilled holes are aligned to receive the bolts, which are held in place with nuts. The operator secures the nuts by, first, manually applying torque and, finally, by producing leverage with an appropriately fitted wrench.
Formal? Yes. But boring.
A serious tone
In most sections—this space representing an exception—OGJ pursues a serious tone. Its readers use OGJ news stories, technical articles, and statistics in their work, not their hobbies. For them, interest in information useful on the job precedes attention and doesn't have to be coaxed out with witty froth, which might be wholly appropriate in a different type of magazine.
Serious readers interested in serious subjects demand a serious tone. Serious, by the way, does not mean boring. Good writing for a professional audience should always feel serious to the reader but never be boring. How that's done is a trade secret.
The aforementioned document appears at www.ogj.com (scroll to the bottom of the home page, click "About Us," then, under Additional Information, "Submit Article"). Here's hoping you find it serious but not boring and feel inspired to propose an article.
