Writing who is your audience

Thinking about your audience differently can improve your writing, especially in terms of how clearly you express your argument. The clearer your points are, the more likely you are to have a strong essay. Before you even begin the process of writing, take some time to consider who your audience is and what they want from you. Use the following questions to help you identify your audience and what you can do to address their wants and needs:.

This is the hard part. As we said earlier, you want to show your instructor that you know the material. But different assignments call for varying degrees of information. Different fields also have different expectations. For more about what each field tends to expect from an essay, see the Writing Center handouts on writing in specific fields of study. The best place to start figuring out how much you should say about each part of your paper is in a careful reading of the assignment.

We give you some tips for reading assignments and figuring them out in our handout on how to read an assignment. What information do you want your audience to understand?

D emographics Language? Income level? Educational level? Political associations? Cultural associations? I nterest Why does your audience care about your topic? E nvironment What are the cultures of the Communities of Practice you are addressing?

C ustomize What genre works for your audience? Would they prefer a personal, handwritten note? E xpectations What research methods are expected? Examples of Different Audiences Audiences are characterized by the questions they ask when they read. Instructors : When instructors are your primary audience, they may ask: Did the student follow instructions?

Did the student follow conventions for citing, paraphrasing, and summarizing sources? Is the document written well, following grammatical, mechanical, and punctuation rules? Are warnings and safety precautions clearly presented? Can I skim through the visuals and flow diagrams rather than read the text?

Put yourself in their shoes; it will give you a new perspective. Tell your audience why the material is important to them.

Then, guide them through the information they need to know. They will expect accurate information, standard grammar, correct spelling, correctly formatted papers and logically presented ideas.

They will expect you to back up your generalizations with specific examples and to draw your own conclusions based on the examples given. Who is my audience? Answer Knowing who you are writing for is critical when starting the writing process. They need background information, definitions and descriptions to help them understand your paper. You will be writing for the lay audience more than any other in college.

Even though your instructor may be a subject matter expert on your topic, you will generally treat them as if they were a layperson, but take into account what that particular instructor expects from your paper see Writing For Your Instructor below.

The managerial audience may have more background information than the lay audience.