To begin, consider tone and diction. The author's tone is his or her attitude toward the text. Tone is heavily influenced by diction, or the words chosen by the author. Good authors deliberately select phrases that will allow you to "hear" the attitude in their work. A dull author might use every word equally likely to indicate a positive or negative idea. Tone can be expressed through the choice of words only if the writer has something to say. If he or she does not, then no matter what words are used, they will be interpreted as indicating a negative idea. For example, if I write "It was a cold December day," it would be impossible for this statement to have any other meaning than that the weather was cold at the time. However, if I replaced these words with "It was a hot July day," the meaning would be completely different - probably indicating that someone is lying about the weather in some way. Thus, tone can be expressed through diction but not vice versa. Diction alone is not enough to indicate an attitude; instead, ideas must be combined with words to create a complete thought.