Writing – Audience Purpose
Study the following text/message and choose the appropriate audience from the choices given below.
All students of St. Peter school are at this moment informed about a change in school timings from 10th November 2021. The school starts at 9.30 a.m. & closes at 3.30 p.m. In the past few months…
The audience for the above text is _______________
- Newspaper editors
- The laypeople or the general public
- The experts
- Students of a school or college
Why is the Audience Important?
The audience plays a significant role in how a writer approaches writing. The writer can change his tone and sentence structure to match their target audience.
Let’s consider an example to understand the above question.
Children’s books often have simple sentence structures and use positive language to engage the young audience. In contrast, a book written for an adult can use complex language with a more complex subject matter.
The Purpose of the Audience in Any Writing
Knowing the audience helps in the following way:
- To make decisions about what information should be included
- How the data should be arranged.
- What kind of information is needed.
- What kind of supporting details will be necessary for the reader to understand when it is presented?
- The influences of the tone and structure of the document.
- To develop and present a compelling argument.
- The type of appeal and the way to address the audience.
It’s essential to be aware of the audience type to attract your writing.
The audience types in writing and what each means for your writing approach.
And consider the audience and purpose and how they relate to the genre you are writing in.
Let’s Discuss the Types of Audience:
- Fellow students
- The experts or specific person (e.g., a newspaper editor)
- The laypeople or the general public.
- The technicians
- The target audience
1. Fellow Students
Students often read each other’s writing work and share their ideas. Consider what the audience know and doesn’t know about your topic to meet the needs of this audience,
2. The Experts or Specific Person (e.g., a newspaper editor)
This type of audience has substantial knowledge on the subject matter you’re writing about. It can also be someone who has read thousands of mystery novels and is an expert audience member for a mystery writer.
When writing for an expert audience, there is no need to cover the beginner basics of the subject material.
3. The Laypeople or the General Public
This type of audience has virtually no knowledge about the topic. These readers should be considered the person who come for their first day at work.
The qualities of this type of audience are that their eyes are wide open, and they are trying to take in as much as they can
All the basic details of the subject matter must be considered for this type of audience so that the readers can follow along.
4. The Technicians
Targeting this type of audience is quite complex.
They need the things which make logical sense.
These types of audiences do not need twists and turns in the content.
5. The Target Audience
Target audience means writing for a particular group of people.
Example: To write about an issue in your community, your audience would probably be your community’s public or local officials who have the power to decide on the location.
What Appeals to the Audience?
The intended audience is known and what is the purpose is for writing, specific decisions can be made about how to write you piece.
Appeal to know what sparks their taste and preference,
The Three Ways to Appeal to an Audience are Namely:
- Logos
- Pathos
- Ethos
Let’s Have a Glance at the Triangle First
1. Pathos
It means emotion which gets the fastest attraction of the audience. Emotional responses are more important for people in general. However, too much pathos makes the audience feel highly manipulated or annoyed because of their tendency to look for facts to support emotional claims.
2. Logos
It means logic; logos is where those facts protrude. The audience questions the validity of the claims; the ideas need to be supported using science and statistics data.
3. Ethos
It means what you do to prove to your audience that your writing can be trusted and has a credible source of information. It conveys that audience are good people always opt doing right thing. Ethos is especially important when writing an argument to an audience who disagrees with you.
Points to Ponder on Audience:
- What and how much the audience knows about the topic?
- Reader’s knowledge and extent of their knowledge.
- The background knowledge of the audience
- Does the audience need to be provided with any background information or knowledge?
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