|
Objectives
1. Learn why
it's important to consider the audience before beginning to write.
2. Understand
how knowing and analyzing the audience can help make you a successful
writer.
Why is it
important to consider the audience?
How often have
you been asked to consider the audience before beginning a writing
project? Probably not very often. Even though your college writing
professor may ask you to think about the audience before you write,
doing so might not be too challenging if the professor is your only
real reader. Writing for a college course usually means that you have
to prepare for only one audience— the professor! When your professor
is your audience, you usually need to ask only three questions:
- How long should
this paper be?
- What must
I write about?
- What are this
professor's expectations?
This situation
may lead you to think that purposeful writing is confined to a classroom,
and that professors are your only real audience.
However, other
audiences do exist for writing, especially once you enter the world
of work. If you're a part-time student you may already be in that
work world every day. Good communication skills (yes, that means writing!)
are critical for upward mobility in the workforce, and they're also
important if you want your voice to be heard in politics and social
environments.
What must
I do to consider the audience when I write?
Caring about
your audience means customizing your writing style, your language
and your reasoning to meet the needs of your particular readers. To
some extent, customizing your writing style is similar to what car
manufacturers do when they customize their assembly lines to allow
different people to get different versions of the same basic car.
For example, Dr. Jones, Jennifer and Robert may go to the same car
dealership looking for a Nissan Maxima. Dr. Jones is well established
and she wants her car fully loaded, yet sophisticated: She'll pay
for leather seats, power windows, power door locks, electric seats,
and anti-lock brakes. Jennifer is an expectant mother. She's more
interested in dependability and safety than in money, so she chooses
a car with an entirely different set of options. Robert wants all
the luxury that he can afford, but he's getting ready to graduate
from college and pay off his student loans, so he can't afford too
much. Robert insists on a sunroof and CD player, but passes on the
leather seats. By adding different options as the cars roll down the
assembly line, the car company ensures that each customer gets what
he or she wants in the same basic product.
However, the
writing process is a little more complicated than manufacturing an
automobile, and simply changing words, style, and organization won't
allow you to meet the needs of all audiences. You can overcome this
dilemma by looking at the members of your audience, and answering
three key questions before you begin writing:
- Who are your
readers?
- What are
their needs?
- What will
it takes to influence them to accept your argument?
One of the best
ways to begin to answer these questions is to think about yourself
and your audience as though you were a psychologist studying a group
of people for a study. Like most people, writers and their readers
follow the paths of their own self-interest, and different kinds of
people have different self-interests. As
a writer, your goal may be to explain something to the audience or
to persuade them to take an action that you think is necessary. Your
readers, however, have their own particular interests, and they are
likely to resist your attempts to educate and persuade them if you
don't take into account their values, beliefs and needs. You have
to act like a psychologist and try to discover your audience's needs
and interests in order to be an effective writer and communicator.
For example,
let's say you want to establish a homeless shelter in the unused basement
of your college's cafeteria. You are fulfilling your self-interest
because you have a desire to help homeless people in your community
by providing them with shelter and food.
Say that you
write your essay in a tone of anger and moral outrage. You might successfully
arouse the anger of your fellow students at the overwhelming number
of homeless people in the community. Your emotional appeals have worked
for that audience; however, you still haven't achieved your goal of
starting the homeless shelter because you haven't appealed to the
people with the power and the money to make the shelter a reality.
This is often
the case with writers on college campuses: A good idea can be lost
because the only audience the writer addresses is his or her fellow
students. In order to get the shelter built, at least two other audiences
must be addressed: the administration and local community members.
Teaching them about homelessness and moving them to action requires
that you take account of their interests and perspective. You must
realize that though these audiences might be sympathetic to your emotional
appeals, they won't be moved to action by the same kinds of appeals
as your student colleagues. You must approach them differently by
addressing what they think is important.
Doing so requires
getting to know these audiences. If you do, you'll realize that they
will be more influenced by the practicality of a plan. You'll need
to outline how your shelter will operate, what funds will pay for
it, and who will staff it. The emotional appeal can still be present,
but it will be necessary to downplay it and to add concrete examples
and supportive proofs to address the interests of these audiences.
Keep in mind
that your self-interest has not changed and that you, as a writer,
are not different. The only difference is how you approach your audience.
All audiences are judges, and they will choose the best course of
action as they see fit, in accordance with their own concerns, experience
and view of the world.
Summary
It's important
to know and analyze your audience's needs before you can hope to change
their opinions with your writing. Never assume that all people think
alike, or that they understand things the same way that you do. If
you are going to use writing to make something happen, you have to
be aware of the audience you are addressing and you have to place
things in a context that the audience can understand. Only when you
place your argument in your audience's frame of reference will your
message be heard.
The following
lessons will teach you how to analyze an audience and to shape your
writing to meet their needs:
  
|
