Who is my audience and how does audience affect my paper?
When you write a paper, how aware should you be about your audience? Who is your audience? your teacher? your peer? your family? your friends? the general public?You have to vary the tone, length, and complexity of your paper to suit your audience and your purpose. For instance, when I write a paper for friends, I use a more informal tone and include personal examples. When I write a paper for my teacher, I write in a more professional tone and I don't use personal examples, instead I take examples from my scholarly research like case studies. When I write for my boss, I am writing to impress the boss to show him initiative and problem solving skills. When we write, we adapt our writing to suit our audience.
When should I consider audience in my paper?
I say that in the pre-writing stage when you are still thinking about what to write, you should not concern yourself with audience. When you are in the freewriting stage and are busy exploring a possible topic, you should concentrate on what you want to write about the topic, what topic you want to explore, why you are interested in the topic, what you know about the topic, what main idea you want to develop and what reasons you want to explain/justify/prove that main idea. So, in the beginning stages of writing your paper, focus on refining your topic and your thesis.
After you have written your rough draft and you have already organized your ideas, you can start thinking about audience as you approach the third stage of the writing process, that is the Re-write stage. As you revise your paper for essay structure, then consider your audience. Did you define all the hard lingo or jargon? Does the paper fulfill its purpose? Does your paper make sense? Should I imagine who my audience is and what their tastes are? How does inventing a fictitious audience help me with my paper?
As an introverted One Drafter, I visualize my audience in my head and I imagine what they would want me to say. If I am writing a personal paper, I imagine what I would say to my parents or grandparents, or if I am writing to my boss, I imagine what the boss wants to hear. By visualizing the audience in my head, I can create the appropriate tone and voice for my paper.
So for me, it is when I rewrite/revise my paper that I consider my audience. For instance, after I write my rough draft and start revising my paper, I then think about my audience who in my case, was my teacher. I remember she wanted a 10 page paper, not a 25 page paper. (My papers always turn out too long). So, I have to spend time cutting down my 25 page paper to the 10 page paper the teacher, my audience wants. I have to make sure when I cut out parts of my paper that I don't lose any of the effectiveness or punch to my reasons.
I recommend to students when free-writing, you can just block out your mind to the outside world, don't think about grammar rules, don't think about audience, just focus on refining and organizing your initial topic and position for your paper. Then, after you write your rough draft, then when you revise your paper, then you can consider audience just like I did with my teachers who wanted shorter papers than I could write because I am too verbose!
Do you consider audience when you write? Do you invent a fictitious audience to help you with voice and tone?
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