Audience Awareness
Whenever you are writing an essay or presenting any material it is important to consider who will be viewing your work. This is important because the type of audience you are writing to can affect the outcome of your assignments in many ways.
For example: Writing an email to your grandparents asking for school money will most likely be very different from writing an essay to apply for a scholarship.
Questions to consider according to The Norton Field Guide for Writing...
Whom do you want to reach?
-Think about who you are writing to specifically.
What is your audience's background?
-Consider their ages, educational level, and lifestyle.
What are their interests?
-Try to figure out what exactly your audience cares about, what do they like? What do they dislike? This is important in regards to political topics and sensitive subjects.
What does your audience already know about your topic?
-You should think about what you may need to tell or explain to them. This is where you should also think about what methods would be most effective in getting your point across.
What is your relationship to the audience?
-Do you know these people personally, or are they strangers?
What kind of response do you want?
-How you deliver your speech can have a direct outcome on the audience's response. It is important to have a firm stance on the topic.
How can you best appeal to your audience?
-Consider Logic, Ethics, and Emotion (Explained on the Logical Appeals Page).
What does your audience need and expect from you?
-If you're writing a paper for your professor they probably want evidence in your paper that you understand the assignment and have actually done the work required.
-TCB
