Audience Awareness: Using What You Know by Skye Anicca

Facing a new writing task can bring on classic fight or flight symptoms: sweaty palms, immobility, the sudden compulsion to do laundry or wash dishes. Professional and academic writing can certainly be intimidating, but what few people realize is they are already well versed in the fundamentals.  Have you ever tried to get out of a speeding ticket? Attempted to convince a friend to go out with you when they’d rather not? Had to give a public presentation? Kindly refused a family member’s advice? In these everyday situations, we know exactly how to respond because, since even before we could speak, we have been learning to communicate with one another, to essentially step outside ourselves in search of someone else’s understanding. This communication is based on our innate sensitivity to three social cues: audience, purpose, and context. 

Our intuitions about our audience when we speak or write are perhaps the most elemental. For example, bring to mind a humorous conversation you recently had with a close friend. Now picture having the same conversation with your 83-year-old grandmother. Imagine using the same language, mannerisms, and tones. Likely, this new picture is absurd. You already know you could never speak to your grandmother in the same way as you do your friends. You might even discover that the topic of your conversation has to change significantly in order to imagine your grandmother taking part at all. Therefore, an understanding of audience begins simply as this: What you say (or write) and how you say (or write) it depends entirely on the person or group you are addressing.

Could the basis of effective writing—know your audience—really be this simple? The answer is actually yes! And yet of course, there is more. This basic understanding can go a long way in deciding where to begin, how to focus, what information to seek, and the language and tone you will choose. Where it gets a bit more complicated is what it means to know your audience, especially when that audience is a group—say, of academic professionals—that are widely varied and unknown to you. However, with a little research, you can apply the same tactics you would use in everyday situations to an understanding your audience in academic and professional settings. 

Questions to Ask When Considering Audience

• Where is your audience coming from? What do they know about your topic? What are their likely assumptions? What might they not know? 
• What does your audience care about? Is their focus on the same aspect of the topic as your own? If not, where might their focus lie? Are their priorities likely the same as yours? How might they be different? 
• What outcome is most important to your audience? In the complicated mix of priorities, what is the bottom line for your audience? What are their most important concerns? Are they essentially the same as yours? How might they be different? 
• What are the best ways to negotiate any differences of priorities or opinions amid you and your audience? Is your audience likely to respond to logic? To emotional appeals? To your credibility or the credibility of your sources? Are there points on which you can “agree to disagree” and still move on to mutual priorities?

With some thought, research, and the basic communication skills you have already spent your lives perfecting, you will soon be on your way towards being a clearer communicator and more effective writer. Next time the panic sets in, think about how much you already know and who you want to share that with. Tackle some of these questions, and soon that empty page will transform into an intelligent, articulate expression of your unique perspective. Happy writing!

Photo credit: Unknown / Foter.com / Public domain