Audience

College writing assignments are practice for real-world writing tasks after graduation. All professionals — scientists, business men and women, mechanics, nurses, teachers, programmers, health workers and others - engage in research to find answers to questions and solutions to problems. These are then shared with others — supervisors, colleagues, and administrators — the audience.

A writer:

  • identifies and describes a problem;
  • summarizes previous investigations and solutions to a problem;
  • advocates or proposes a solution using logical arguments supported by research, experimentation, and the credible work of others;
  • anticipates questions, negative reactions, opinions or bias audience members may have, and addresses them in the paper;
  • convinces audience members to think the same way s/he does based on the logical arguments and solid evidence from reliable information sources.
2.5 Your instructor is one member of your audience. List others below who will read your paper or listen to your presentation, such as classmates, family members, community members, etc.



2.6 Is your audience familiar with your topic? Do you suspect that one or more audience members might have strong opinions or bias about your topic? Explain.