As writers, one of the key things we need to consider is our
audience. Who is reading our work, what do they know? What do they want to
know? In order to enhance your writing and consider your audience, today we’ll
talk about treating writing as a conversation.
Note that this is different than conversational tone. You want to have a very
academic and formal conversation—but thinking of writing as a conversation with
your esteemed audience can help you improve your reader’s experience—which will
also improve the quality of your work and clarity of your ideas.
Imagine Your Audience
First, it helps to imagine your audience to know what type
of conversation you’ll be having. A conversation with you and your mom would
probably be different than one with you and an old friend and again different
than one with you and a stranger. For most academic writing you want to
consider your audience as someone you look up to in your field but haven’t met
in person. Basically, you want to show off how smart you are to this audience a
little bit—which will help you keep the appropriate tone. Remember, when
imagining your audience, you’ll want to be:
Imagine Both Sides
The main difference between a written conversation and an
in-person one is that the other person can’t talk back or ask questions or
interrupt. So when writing as a conversation, it’s important to fill in the
gaps where the other person might ask a question—you don’t want to leave a
reader who can’t interrupt you with a lack of understanding or clarification,
right? Because then at the end of your paper their question may still be
unanswered.
Here’s an example of
something that might happen in a real conversation:
You are speaking with a friend and discussing your weekend plans. Your friend suddenly says “Oh yes potato salad is my favorite”. You have no idea how they made that leap—so in the real conversation, you could ask them and they might say “Sorry! I was thinking of my favorite food to take on picnics. I like to picnic at the park you were just talking about”. The connection is there, but you couldn’t see it, right? Now imagine you couldn’t interrupt your friend for questions—you would be stuck wondering how potato salad connected to Riverside Park, and you’d never get an answer.
In imagining both sides, you do a few things in your writing:
A) You connect the dots—Lay out exactly what you mean and what
the reader should take away from your source information. Is a percentage high
or low on average? What does it mean? Make sure to fill these gaps.
We have some great information and examples of how to employ this strategy on this page about using evidence
B) You are specific—It may
seem perfectly clear to you that by “my organization” you mean Mercy Hospital,
but your reader has no way of knowing that information , so be sure to specify
whenever possible.
C) You explain why—Make
sure you let a reader know why
something is important. Don’t just say something needs to happen or knowledge
is important—explain why so they have the same understanding as you do.
Imagine
Yourself
Sometimes it can be helpful to imagine that you are writing
instructions, directions, or explanations for your future self. Think about
writing to yourself ten years from now, for example—you’ll have probably
forgotten the exact research, ideas, and conclusions you had. So be really
detailed in order to help your future self out! Your future self will likely
have an advanced degree, so you still want to impress them with citations,
insight, and scholarly tone.
With these tips in mind, you can use aspects of a
conversation to enhance your audience’s comprehension of your work! Have
comments, questions, or strategies to approaching your written work with your
audience in mind? Let us know below!
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