Since letters are written without verbal communication, and therefore without inflection, one must depend on the writer's word choice, language, and sentence structure in order to determine the author's tone. In a letter to a small, publishing company called Grove Press Inc., Ira C. Herbert, an executive of the colossal Coca-Cola company, writes to discuss the simultaneous use of a similar tag line in an advertisement - "it's the real thing." According to Herbert, Coke …showed first 75 words of 631 total…

…showed last 75 words of 631 total…letter on the other hand, while less artistic, is the overall more persuasive letter. His politeness in representing his argument is far more likely to win over an audience and his faults, such as an overbearing amount of complex sentences, are less likely to offend. The tone of text can differ greatly from the intended tone of the author. Detailed attention to word choice, language, and sentence structure, however, can help aid in these misinterpretations.