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The What & Why: of Audiences |
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a long time, writers have stressed one thing: communication.
"You have to reach out, to go beyond the page in front of you. You have to talk to the people out there - the readers of your work. They won't listen to your message if it doesn't appeal to them. You have to attempt to make your message just as important to your audience as it is to you," says N.K. of Bel Letters Journal, "To do just that, to really communicate with your readers, your message has to be clear and interesting. Your audience has to want to continue reading it." "Always remember your audience!" concurs Professor Grammarius Bean, "Writers who are aware of their audiences, are best able to inform, persuade, or instruct their readers." Most writers direct their work to the General Reading Public, that is, the general reading population, or just about everyone who reads. These people have common knowledge, that is, they have a general knowledge about things. The general reading public doesn't want to have to muck through too much technical terminology. Most technical terminology will appear in writing directed towards specialists. Specialists have specific and special knowledge in some area and expect the writer to write accordingly. For example, an audience of theatrical technicians will expect certain special technical jargon to appear in writing directed to them. Anyone not familiar with this jargon of such specialized terms, like "fresnel" and "patch panel", will not understand the writer's message. Instructors are another set of specialists. They have specialized knowledge about the material on which the writer (their student) writes. Material written with instructors as the audience tends to focus on a subject of intellectual interest and is often written in a formal tone with attention paid to overall structure, grammar, and punctuation. "I already know most of the material about which my students write," says Ms. Thistle, a teacher for the past 23 years, "I want to see what new ideas they can bring to the material. I'm also interested in how well they present those ideas." "Go write `I will focus on my audience one hundred times' if you think that'll help you remember it," says rebel author, Jon Wynn, "The audience is all important. Whatever your message, it's best to know your audience and their common links to one another, such as common history, common knowledge, religion, geographic location, or whatever binds them together. Your message must be directed according to those guidelines, if you are to reach them. Know to what they respond and your message will not only reach them, it will affect them. If you only reach them, your message may only be heard, but, if you can affect them, your message will definitely be remembered." |
