In Matters Of Audience

It was clear to me from today's in-class work that the students were stuck on how to best broach the topic of audience with our tutees. This includes myself. The problem with academic writing is that too often the teacher is the intended audience. A clever instructor might tell his students to envision that he is writing for a literary critic or perhaps a newspaper panel...but students usually have a hard time sustaining the ruse. A thought occured to me that the emphasis we placed today on audience might work best if emphasis is returned to the paper. Through a clarification of goals, should not the matter of audience fall easily into place? Or, if not easily, should the student at least have a more specific idea of whom he is writing to?

Does the imaginary audience ever become real? Through clarification of goals, the writer can produce a more tightly organized document. For instance, if one is writing a summary of an article detailing Paradise Lost, the student should consider his audience to be fellow Advanced Literary students. In a larger sense, his audience will be academic. Dr. Wilcox presented the issue in this manner: When writing a summary, think of it this way. Write it down and then go and ask the author if this is what he meant. Again, this would be done in an imaginary context, of course.

My group brought up the implication that we need to find common themes among members of the audience. This method may translate better to some genres than to others. The example offered was that of our school newspaper. A common thread that resonates within this audience is an interest in Elmhurst College.

As writers gearing a piece towards a specific audience, we perhaps need to ask two questions:

Who am I writing for?
What is the message I want others to take away from this piece and why?

Asking these questions leads the writer down a path that enables him to fine tune what he desires his work to be and the message that it presents. The piece and the audience should not be regarded as two separate entities, but rather as parts of one process. What is the message and how does one broadcast it?