Thinking about Audience then answer this 10 question:
Whom do you want to reach? To whom are you writing (or speaking)?
What is your audience’s background-their education and life experiences?
It may be important for you to know, for example, whether your read- ers attended college, fought in a war, or have young children.
What are their interests? What do they like? What motivates them? What do they care about?
Is there any demographic information that you should keep in mind? Con- sider whether race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, occupation, religious beliefs, economic status, and so on should affect what or how you write. For example, writers for Men’s Health, InStyle, and Out must consider the particular interests of each magazine’s readers.
What political circumstances may affect their reading? What attitudes- opinions, special interests, biases-may affect the way your audience reads your piece? Are your readers conservative, liberal, or middle of the road? Politics may take many other forms as well-retirees on a fixed income may object to increased school taxes, so a letter arguing for such an increase would need to appeal to them differently than would a similar letter sent to parents of young children.
What does your audience already know-or believe-about your topic? What do you need to tell them? What is the best way to do so? Those retirees who oppose school taxes already know that taxes are a burden for them; they may need to know why schools are justified in asking for more money every few years. A good way to explain this may be with a bar graph showing how property values benefit from good bchools with adequate funding. Consider which STRATEGIES will be effective-narrative, comparison, something else?
What’s your relationship with your audience, and how should it affect your language and tone? Do you know them, or not? Are they friends? colleagues? mentors? adversaries? strangers? Will they likely share your STANCE? In general, you need to write more formally when you’re addressing readers you don’t know, and you may address friends and colleagues more informally than you would a boss.
What does your audience need and expect from you? Your history pro- fessor, for example, may need to know how well you can discuss the economy of the late Middle Ages in order to assess your learning; he may expect you to write a carefully reasoned argument, drawing con- clusions from various sources, with a readily identifiable thesis in the first paragraph. Your boss, on the other hand, may need an informal email that briefly lists your sales contacts for the day; she may expect that you list the contacts in the order in which you saw them, that you clearly identify each one, and that you briefly say how well each contact went. What GENRE is most appropriate?
What kind of response do you want? Do you want readers to believe or do something? to accept as valid your information on a topic? to understand why an experience you once had still matters to you now?
How can you best appeal to your audience? Is there a particular MEDIUM that will best reach them? Are there any DESIGN requirements? (Elderly readers may need larger type, for instance.)
