Introduction
The mode of writing depends upon the intended audience of the writer. A piece of writing that caters to a specific audience gets the message across and makes the communication effective. If you are writing for an educated audience, you will have to use appropriate vocabulary and grammar. But suppose you are writing for a general audience. In that case, you should avoid using jargon because they make it difficult for the readers to understand your writing. So, the mode of writing is an important concept in writing, and writers must be aware of it.
What is the intended audience in writing?
The viewers, listeners, and intended readers of work, presentation, or speech are the audience. The intended audience in writing refers to those people for whom you are writing. It pertains to those people with whom the writer intends to communicate through their writing. The intended audience can be a person, a newspaper editor, a journal editor, or a book editor. It can be a group of people, such as college students, university students, government officials, practitioners, and policymakers.
The intended audience also comprises the general public, for example, the people residing in the UK. The general audience is further classified into male, female, adult, teenagers, and senior citizens. The intended audience encompasses an individual or a group of people for whom the writer writes. According to what the writer understands about his or her audience, he adopts a certain language style, tone, and substance.
What are the types of audience in writing?
To understand the audience types, we talked with experts of an assignment writing service in UK. According to them, an audience is a group of listeners/readers. We ought to consider our listeners as a whole and generalise their characteristics for the most part. Writers can determine the intended audience by classifying them into the following categories:
- Target Audience
- Secondary Audience
- Tertiary Audience
1. Target Audience
The target audience is the primary audience for whom you are writing something. The target audience is the people you want to read your paper or who you anticipate will read it. These are the folks for whom you are creating your paper. Everything you write should be understandable to your intended audience. Medical practitioners, for example, may write peer-reviewed papers for their colleagues. Students may write assignments for their instructors. Besides, managers may write reports for the management board.
2. Secondary Audience
People who desire or want to read your paper but have a different academic background or practice in an unrelated field than your target audience are your secondary audience. An anthropology research paper’s secondary audience, for instance, might include academics from other professions or other individuals interested in the subject or research findings. They can be natural scientists, journalists, students, historians and even those people who read for pleasure. However, it is important to remember that your secondary audience might not be familiar with your subject. They might not understand the technical jargon of your field. But they still take an interest in your writing and are eager to read about it.
But it is difficult to respond to both primary and secondary audiences simultaneously. However, you can make some changes in the writing mode by defining the key terminologies. You can’t make everyone happy since you’d have to include too much information or instruction. It will make the document too long to read for the primary audience or give the impression that it is not created for them. You won’t be able to clarify everything to your secondary audience. But you can make it easier for them to understand your paper by defining important terminologies and ensuring that your main goal and results are crystal clear.
3. Tertiary Audience
Your tertiary audience encompasses those who will somehow benefit or be influenced by your writing. But your tertiary audience will not read your document. These people will hear about it via the secondary or primary audience. Your tertiary audience will be those people who will not read your paper, but they will come to know about it through the primary and secondary audience. So, the core points of your writing must be crystal clear to avoid being misunderstood or misrepresented.
How do you determine the intended audience?
You can determine the intended audience by considering the following things:
- Identify your relationship with the audience that whether it is personal or professional. And how does the audience perceive you as a writer
- Identify the strength of your audience that whether they are a small group of people or a large audience
- Try to understand whether you can share your personal opinions with your audience, such as beliefs, values, and prejudices.
- Ask yourself about any difference between you and your audience that will impede the communication.
- Identify what your audience knows about the subject you are writing
- Identify what you want to tell your audience. What information do you want to convey?
- Identify what information you do not want to convey to your audience
- What are the emotional and psychological attachments of the people to the topic you want to write about?
- Why should people read your document? What purpose will it serve?
- What is the educational, cultural, and political background of your audience?
- Will everybody have the same level of understanding?
- What kind of people do you want to read your paper? Is it only for the educated audience or the general audience?
Conclusion
Once you decide about your intended audience, you will structure your writing mode as per your audience. The writing mode acquires its style and structure once you decide about your intended audience. The intended audience determines the language, style, tone, and the document’s key points. Thus, it is important to determine your audience beforehand to effectively communicate your message to the readers.
