Know the 3 most important factors in real estate? Location, location, location.
Well, for writing, it’s audience.
Take a look at the rubric for your Unit 3 project, and you’ll see this come up again and again–note how many of these items hinge on textual features that are appropriate to the audience. That’s why you need to have a very clear picture of who your audience is, so that you can better assess what they will need and expect from you, so that you can deliver.
Presenting your research in an audience-appropriate fashion is the critical to the success of your communication. You might have terrific information and important new ideas to share, but if you can’t make them land with your audience, there’s little point in you writing in the first place.
That’s why we’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at texts that weren’t scholarly articles or straightforward academic-style essays. Those genres work really well for certain audiences and purposes–to communicate cutting-edge new ideas to other people with some background knowledge/expertise in the field–but they don’t work well for everybody all the time. We depend upon other genres to communicate in other situations.
And that’s why I’ve asked you to get pretty specific in setting forth the rhetorical situation that you’ve conjured for this text you’re creating. In order to understand and evaluate your work, your readers need to know just who you’re aiming to reach and under what circumstances. That’s why I asked you to include an explanatory note with your draft. You’ll do the same with your final revised version.
It’s worth reviewing some of the myriad ways in which audience matters
Decisions about audience and purpose are intrinsically connected–it wouldn’t make sense to provide general knowledge background to people who are already experts, nor would it make sense to lobby entry-level workers for policy change (since they’re not the ones who make those decisions). Your audience and your objective need to be tightly and logically connected.
Your audience dictates various writing choices–how long will you be likely to have your readers’ attention? how much specialized jargon can you use? how much background information will you need to provide? what’s an effective level of detail? what kinds of examples will they be most interested in? what source information will your readers expect to have for their own follow-up? what kind of relationship will you seek to establish with them?
Knowing your audience lets you shape your text to be functional for them–in terms of level of formality, voice, use of graphics/media, visual organization of the text, incorporation of external links, etc.
I encourage you to reflect on these choices as you’re completing the revision exercise this weekend and as you’re revising your final project for submission on Wednesday, 8/25. Please note that due date–the final project is NOT due on the final day of the summer term, in part because you have some other work to complete afterward (your course reflection and any outstanding assignments you might have, AND in part because I know this is a transitional period for many of you who are heading into fall classes and/or other responsibilities. This way you’ll have one big thing cleared off your plate and will be that much closer to moving on.
If you have any questions as you’re working on your revisions, please don’t hesitate to email me. I’m happy to correspond that way or to chat by phone/Zoom. It’s been nice to see some of your faces (albeit on a screen) over the last few weeks. I’ll gladly arrange a time to chat with any of you who would like.
Hope you can all find some time to enjoy this last week of summer. To those of you in NY/New England, best wishes over the next 36 hours–I hope Hurricane Henri decides to shift course and pass offshore. Stay safe.