Knowing or anticipating who will be reading whatever has been written is the key to effective writing.

February 13, 2018

In regards to Identifying Audience

Knowing or anticipating who will be reading whatever has been written is the key to effective writing. The first question is to establish the target audience for the piece of writing. Such an answer might be obvious especially for reports, forms, strategies, marketing brochures, and blogs. Knowing your audience will help you realize the message which needs to be passed on. At the same time, it will also help in making a decision about the voice which is to be used. The writing style of an author is also determined by the composition of the audience. The writing and editing process will be effective where the audience composition, needs, preferences, and expectations are predetermined.

The audience is identified after knowing the specific matter or subject that is to be documented. Once the aspect in question is realized, this is when the author or editor tries to figure out the preferences and the best language to use, in order to reach out to the audience and capture their attention. Basically, transforming a writer centered draft into an audience centered draft is the most important challenge faced by a writer at this stage.

I recently wrote a marketing brochure, and later developed a research report for a healthcare organization. The audience for my marketing brochure were the consumers in the market. In the healthcare setting, this report was made for the administration in the entity (Richardson, 2010).

There are various aspects which I needed to consider based on the different audiences; age, education level, expectations, and purpose.

References

Friend, C., Challenger, D., & McAdams, K. (2005). Contemporary editing. New York: McGraw

Hill

Richardson, L. (2010). Writing strategies: Reaching diverse audiences (Vol. 21). Sage.

QUESTION:

Do you think it is possible to achieve total objectivity in reporting? Why, or why not? Think of personal biases you might have that would make it difficult to cover some topics or edit stories on them objectively. What can you do to overcome these biases?