(DC) Lesson Topic 1: Audience

 Writers need to consider both audience and purpose in writing because the two elements affect writing significantly, and decisions about one affect the other. Your audience determines what you will write, what examples and details to include, and what to emphasize. Having a clear audience will also help you to develop your purpose and tone.

For instance, the main purpose of advertising is to sell a product. Advertisers seek the audience who is most likely to purchase a product. Once they have identified this group, they can write their ads to capture the attention of this audience. Hence, their purpose, which is to sell a product or service, shapes what they write. Consider WHY you are writing.

When we talk to someone face-to-face, we know just who we are talking to. We automatically adjust our speech to be sure we are communicating our message. Many writers don't make those same adjustments when they write to different audiences, usually because they don't take the time to think about who will be reading what they write. To be sure that we communicate clearly in writing, we need to adjust our message by recognizing that different readers can best understand different messages.

Consider the following information about the expectations of your audience:

• Will the audience expect outside sources to be cited?
• Will the audience expect personal experience to be used? In the introduction? As evidence in the body of the text?
• Will the audience expect the text to be written in the first-person ("I") or in the third-person?
• Will the audience understand technical terms? Will they expect long explanations or definitions of key terms?
• Will the audience expect particular formats? Will they expect an essay, an article, or a laboratory report? Will the text have a table of contents, a reference list, a title page, headings and subheadings, and extensive graphics or tables?

Writers determine their audience types by considering:

• Who they are (age, gender, education, economic status, political/social/religious beliefs)
• What level of information they have about the subject (novice, general reader, specialist, or expert)
• The context in which they will be reading a piece of writing (in a newspaper, textbook, popular magazine, specialized journal, on the Internet, and so forth)

You will need to analyze your audience in order to write effectively. For most classes, your audience is your teacher, but sometimes you will be asked to prepare a piece of writing for a specific audience. Consider the information in this lesson the next time you are asked to write an essay.

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