AUDIENCE IN WRITING
Introduction
An Audience is the person for whom a writer writes, or composer composes. A
writer uses a particular style of language, tone, and content according to what he
knows about his audience. In simple words, audience refers to the spectators,
listeners, and intended readers of a writing, performance, or speech
Types of audiences
Hostile
Friendly
Informed/Uninformed
Audience analysis
You are wise to consider your audience as early as possible in the writing process
asking the following questions:
i) Who is your primary audience: Are they lay, executives, experts or
technicians
ii) Does your document have multiple audiences? Can you discern an
important secondary audience from that? If so, how will account for their
needs?
iii) What factors impinch on how your audiences will feel about your subjects?
iv) How knowledgeable are your primary and secondary audiences about your
subjects? What concepts will you use to define these audiences?
Identifying your audience will help you focus on the audiences needs and to
write clearly.
Why is audience important in writing?
1. Knowing ones audience helps to make decisions about what
information you should include how you should arrange that
information and what kind of supporting details will be necessary.
2. Knowing your audience influences the tone and structure of the
document.
3. As a student listen to your instructor...
4. In order to efficiently plan for your assignment you need to figure out
who your audience and what specific needs they might have.
5. Helps determining what information to include in a document of
presentation and how to convey it most effectively.
Effects of audience on style of delivery
Elements of style
1. Message
What do the audiences care about
What d they know
2. Context/Arguement
Research
3. Word choice
Formal or informal language
4. Tone
Personal or distant
Humorous or serious
5. Sentence type and length
Short or long
How to reach to audience in introduction
How do you address a diverse audience?
1. Recognize cultural filters
2. Avoid ethnocentrism
3. Be aware of gestures when speaking
4. Distinguish between people and their abilities
5. Adopt bias-free language
6. Avoid sexist language and gender specific terms
7. Acknowledge issues of oppression
Read on:
How do you choose your audience?
Outlining the benefits of understanding an audience
Why is it important to choose your audience?
We all have a way of talking and writing. Normally, we will choose writing strategy
Why is it important to write for the intended audience in my mind?
Writing strategy is based on what we think of us and our reader.
Knowing your audience before you write will make the process easier because it
simplifies the decisions you have to make.
Gives unity of purpose and style and will involve your reader more directly into
your arguement.
It is very useful to write with the real audience in mind e.g if your reader has a
particular view, you could try either or challenge that.
How does choosing an audience affect my purpose?
If you don’t have a particular intended audience in mind, then your writing will
tend to be as general as your intention.
On the other hand, if you see yourself as addressing a real reader you will have a
much clearer understanding of your purpose and your reader will feel more
involved.
How does choosing an audience affect the strategy?
Writers often decide on whether to use formal or casual writing styles depending on
the knowledge that they have on the intended audience. Enables them to ask
questions and make choices rather than follow roles.
How specific should the choice of my audience be?
A key characteristic before the audience in speaking situations is the distribution of
speaking time. This means that the speaker talks much more but the audience
listens with responding with a feedback. For the speaker to understand whether
they are making sense, the feedback given by the audience will be key . Speaker
should be more audience centered.
