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The tone of this article is completely anodyne. I think sometimes people confuse their own discomfort or disagreement with something with its "tone." I think that sometimes this the result of a boundary issue (people sourcing their inner states from things outside themselves e.g. my wife is making me angry vs. I have become angry as a reaction to something my wife has done.) But other times I think it's a subconscious act of bad faith argument, because there's no way to defend yourself from a nonspecific accusation of a "tone." Instead of an argument about "tone," it's always going to be better to be specific about your objection. In my experience, nine times out of ten when asked to be specific, the "tone" problem turns out to be that the author said something "is wrong," and the reviewer is pretending that a horrible mistake has been made by not instead saying "I think it could be wrong," or "this is how I think that this thing might be improved." Nobody should be required to prefix the things they are saying they believe with the fact that those things are their opinions. Who else's opinions would they be? Also, nobody should be required to describe what they think in a way that compliments and builds on things that they think are wrong. It's up to those people to make their arguments themselves. There is no obligation to try to fix things that you actually just want to replace. Contrary to what you say here, I don't think those behaviors make anyone more receptive to one's arguments, because those objections are actually vacuous rhetorical distractions from actual disagreements (whether something is true or false) that can be argued on their merits if there are merits to argue. In fact, I think those behaviors indicate an eagerness to reduce conflict that will only be taken advantage of by someone objecting to "tone" in bad faith. If you've said "I think that this method would improve the process," there's really no reason that a "tone"-arguer can't be upset that you said that it "would" improve the process instead of "could" improve the process. In fact, it's an act of presumptuous elitism that you think you could improve the process, and it disrespects the many very well-regarded researchers involved to state as a fact that you could see something that they haven't. Sorry for the rant, but I think that arguments about "tone" or whether something is "just your opinion, man" are far worse internet pollution than advertising, and I get triggered. |