Audience

Knowing the audience for your piece of writing can help with focus. Knowing who the audience is for a particular piece of writing will help determine what information needs to be included, what needs to be explained further, and assumptions your audience may bring to the reading.

Three Tips

(Adapted from Linda Flower's Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing, Fourth Edition )

1. Find out who your reader will be. If you have more than one, decide which audience is primary. Which reader or kind of reader will your paper be designed primarily for? (Some factors to consider: age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, religious beliefs, political stance, and educational level.)
   
2. Then begin to explore what you know about your readers' knowledge, attitudes, and needs. What assumptions about your topic will your readers bring to the paper? What will your readers need to know about your topic?
   
3. Then plan how you are going to close the gap between you and your reader to make your paper effective. What opposing viewpoints will you need to address? What will you need to explain in order for your audience to fully understand your argument?

Three Questions

Following are three questions you can ask yourself when you are trying to determine your audience. Through the process of answering them you can find your audience:

1. Who needs to hear what I have to say?
   
2. Of the above people, who hasn't heard this before?
   
3. Now of these people, who will think an essay is an appropriate medium of expression?