This article discusses the representation of downstep in the tonal orthographies of some three-tone languages of West Benue-Congo, in the light of the phonological properties of tone in the languages. Ebira has total downstep, which makes both downstepped high and down-stepped mid to be perceived at a level close to outright low tone, and written so; downstepped high in Igala is realised around the level of the mid tone and is often written as mid in the or-thography. In Gwari, the docking of floating high tonal morpheme and contour simplification interact with downstep in such a way that downstepped high tones are frequently written as mid. It is shown that these situations arise because surface tone perception is taken as the sole paramet...