Know Your Audience

[barclay_barrios]

Knowing your audience is a crucial factor in the success of any piece of writing. Have the student review the section on audience in the handbook. In groups, ask them to deduce a series of audiences: the audience for the current reading, the audience for the textbook, the audience for the handbook, the audience for their papers. Crucially, have each group identify how they know each writer has each audience in mind—are there clues in the text? Is the audience explicit? Are there assumptions in the writing that make them think of this audience versus another one?