Студопедия — THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR WRITING
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THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR WRITING






Most inexperienced writers assume that their audience is their writing teacher. But writing teachers often vary in what they teach, what they assume, and what they expect. Tradition­ally, such variation has prompted inexperienced writers to define their writing tasks as "trying to figure out what their teacher wants." This definition is both simple-minded and sophisticated. On the one hand, it suggests that the sole purpose of any writing assignment is to satisfy the whims of another individual. On the other hand, it suggests that once writers begin to analyze the knowledge, assumptions, and expectations of their readers they begin to develop a clearer perception of their subject and purpose. In order to make their analysis effective, however, writers must remember that they are writing for three audiences.

The most immediate (and in some ways the most important) audience for your writing is you. You write not only to convey your ideas to other readers but also to clarify and confirm them for yourself. But to think of yourself as an audience, you must change places: you must stop thinking like a writer and begin thinking like a reader. This change in perspective has advantages to offer, for of course you are the reader that you as the writer knows best; accordingly, you can give your writing an unusually well-informed reading. You are also a fairly representative reader; that is, you do share broad concerns and interests with other people. If you feel that your writing is clear and lively and has something to say, your other readers will probably feel that way too. On the other hand, if you are not especially impressed with your writing, it is likely that your audience will be likewise unimpressed.

There is a drawback to considering yourself as an audience: at times you may deceive yourself. You want your every sentence and paragraph to be perfect, but you also know how much time and energy you invested in writing them, and you may allow that effort to blur your judgment if you aren't careful. That is, you may at times accept bad writing from yourself, even though you wouldn't accept it from someone else. For that reason, you need to consider a second audience for your writing. These readers — usually your teacher or editor — are simultaneously your most attentive and most artificial audience. They have helped you select your subject, guided you through the various stages of the writing process, and counseled you about how to improve many of your sentences and para­graphs. As you write, you must certainly anticipate the detailed advice you have learned to expect from these sympathetic readers. But you must remember that writing teachers and editors are essentially collabo­rators. They know what you have considered, cut out, and corrected. The more they have helped you shape your writing, the more eager they are to applaud it when it approaches acceptability.

The primary audience for your writing is a group of readers that does not care how much time and energy you invested in your writing or how many choices you considered and rejected. These readers are eager to read writing that tells them something interesting or important, and they are put off by writing that is tedious or trivial. It is this wider audience that you (and your collaborators) must consider as you work your way through the writing process.

At times this audience may seem indistinct, and you may wonder how you can direct your writing to it if you do not know any of its distinguish­ing features. In those cases, it may be helpful to imagine a reader to whom you are writing — an attentive, sensible, reasonably informed person who will give you an objective reading so long as you do not waste his or her time. This reader — whom various writers have termed "the general reader," "the universal reader," "the common reader" — is es­sentially a fiction, of course, but often a helpful fiction. If you can imagine this reader as an important person whom you respect and whose respect you want, then your writing can benefit from the objectivity and sincerity with which you address that reader.

Many times, however — especially as you learn more about your sub­ject — you can discern a more specific audience for your writing. Some­times, in fact, you may be able to discern a number of specific audiences, in which case you will ultimately have to choose among them. Consider the following example of how you might identify and analyze several audiences.

Now that you have identified your audiences, you must analyze the distinctive features of each group. What do they know? What do they think they know? What do they need to know? The more you know about each group, the more you will be able to direct your writing to their needs and expectations.

Imagine how two letters requesting a loan would be different if one were addressed to your mother and one to a wealthy but distant relative. No doubt your style and tone would be warm and informal with your mother, more formal and reasoned with a distant relative. In the letter you might pay more attention to effective organization and a variety of sentence patterns than you would feel were more necessary for your mother.

Or consider a writing task in which you are to explain the processes by which stalagmites and stalactites are formed. How would this explanation vary if you were submitting it both to your geology professor and to children in a fourth grade class? Probably your sentence structure and vocabulary would vary as would your tone. You would probably be more informal in addressing the young audience and your organization might be different, too. The professor might expect technical terms while those same terms would likely confuse fourth graders. In addition, the amount of information and detail you would include for the children might be much less, and you would supplement the writing with pictures or drawings that you would not provide for your professor.

Finally, you have to decide which group would make the best audi­ence for your essay. That decision, like the decision about subject, has to be made in the context of the complete writing situation. Both decisions are, in turn, closely related to your discovery of your purpose — what you want to do in your essay. In the next several pages, you will learn how purpose guides your decisions in writing. But first, look at the following guidelines for analyzing your audience.

Guidelines for Analyzing Your Audience

1. Who are the readers that form the primary audience for my writing?
What is their probable age, sex, education, economic status, and so­cial position? What values, assumptions, and prejudices characterize their general attitudes toward life?

2. What do my readers know or think they know about my subject?

What is the probable source of their knowledge — direct experience, observation, reading, rumor? Will my readers react positively or neg­atively toward my subject?

3. Why will my readers read my writing? Why will my readers read my writing?

If they know a great deal about my subject, what will they expect to learn from reading my essay? If they know only a few things about my subject, what will they expect to be told about it? Will they expect to be entertained, informed, or persuaded?

4. How can I interest my readers in my subject? How can I interest my readers in my subject?

If they are hostile toward it, how can I convince them to give my writing a fair reading? If they are sympathetic, how can I fulfill and enhance their expectations? If they are neutral, how can I catch and hold their attention?

5. How can I help my readers read my writing? How can I help my readers read my writing?

What kind of organizational pattern will help them see its purpose? What kind of guideposts and transitional markers will they need to follow this pattern? What (and how many) examples will they need to understand my general statements?

6. How are they likely to respond to what I say? Can I expect them to be neutral? Opposed? Friendly?

Exercise 1. The three excerpts below deal with the same subjectantigensbut each explanation is geared to a different audience. Read the passages carefully; then answer the following questions:

1. What audience does each author address? How do you know?

2. Identify ways in which each author appeals to a specific audience.

1. The human body is quick to recognize foreign chemicals that enter it. "Foes" must be attacked or otherwise got rid of. The most common of these foes are chemical materials from viruses, bacteria, and other microscopic organisms. Such chemicals, when recognized by the body, are called antigens. To combat them, the body produces its own chemicals, protein molecules called antibodies. Each kind of antigen causes the production of a specific kind of antibody. Antibodies appear in the body fluids such as blood and lymph and in the body's cells.

L. D. Hamilton, "Antibodies and Antigens," The New Book of Knowledge

2. [An] Antigen [is a] foreign substance that, when introduced into the body, is capable of inducing the formation of antibodies and of reacting specifically in a detectable manner with the induced antibodies. For each antigen there is a specific antibody, the physical and chemical structure of which is produced in response to the physical and chemical structure of the antigen. Antigens comprise virtually all proteins that are foreign to the host, including those contained in bacteria, viruses, protozoa, helminths, foods, snake venoms, egg white, serum components, red blood cells, and other cells and tissues of various species, including man. Polysaccharides and lipids may also act as antigens when coupled to proteins.

"Antigen," Encyclopaedia Britannica

3. The substance which stimulates the body to produce antibodies is designated antigen (antibody stimulator)....

Most complete antigens are protein molecules containing aromatic amino acids, and are large in molecular weight and size. However, it has been demonstrated that other macromolecules, such as pure polysaccharides, polynucleotides, and lipids, may serve as complete antigens.

However, certain other materials, incapable of stimulating antibody formation by themselves can, in association with a protein or other carrier, stimulate antibody formation and are the antigenic determinants. These determinants are referred to as incomplete antigens or haptens and they are able to react with antibodies which were produced by the determinant-protein complex.

However, before an antigen can stimulate the production of antibodies, it must be soluble in the body fluids, must reach certain tissues in an unaltered form, and must be, in general, foreign to the body tissues. Protein taken by mouth loses its specific foreign-protein characteristics when digested in the alimentary tract. It reaches the tissues of the body as amino acids or other altered digested products of protein. Consequently, it no longer meets the requirements for antigenic behavior.

Orville Wyss and Curtis Eklund,

Microorganisms and Man

Exercise 2. Write the two letters asking for money, one addressed to your mother the other addressed to a wealthy distant relative.

Just as you would not dial a telephone number at random and then expect to carry on a meaningful conversation, so you should not expect to communicate effectively without a specific audience in mind.

One other note: as you shape your paper, it is important that the writing please you as well as your audience—that it satisfies your sense of what good writing is and what the writing task requires. You are, after all, your own first reader.

 







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