FoxType Politeness Checker Helps You Write More Polite Messages

Being rude in your emails or text messages doesn’t usually get you very far, especially when it’s already difficult to sense the tone with text. The FoxType tool can analyse your text and offer rewrite suggestions so you avoid unnecessary rudeness.

FoxType, developed by Alex Jiang and Motoki Wu, is simple to use. Head to the tool, paste your text in the box, and hit Check Tone or press Enter. The tool will scan the structure of your message, as well as the types of words being used. Then it will tell you how polite your tone reads, tell you what part of your message was polite or impolite, and offer a list of possible rewrite suggestions. For example, here are three messages I ran through it with the same general message written with three different tones:

1. Impolite: “Why isn’t that work done yet?”
2. Neutral: “How is that work coming along?”
3. Polite: “Hey, let me know how that work is coming along when you get a chance :)” (the message still reads as polite without the smiley, but they can help)

These examples might seem a little obvious, but there are a lot of things can affect how polite a message reads. Things like using negative words (not, can’t, won’t), using too many questions (they can be sensitive), and failing to use any kind of greeting (hi, hello, hey). You probably don’t need to run every message you write through this, but if you know you’re writing a particularly sensitive message, it couldn’t hurt. If you’re worried about sensitive information, replace certain words and just focus on the sentence structure. You can check it out at the link below.

FoxType [FoxType Labs via MakeUseOf]