Thursday Thoughts: Remembering your Reader

Sometimes in the midst of all your coursework, it can feel like all your writing is made to be read by your classmates on a discussion board. It becomes easy to assume that this is your most common audience, but as you move through your academic program, and after graduation, your audience will become more varied. Perhaps you will be writing for other professional in your field, or for co-workers, or for the general public in popular publications. Maybe you will write for people who don’t know a lot about your topic yet, and maybe you will write for people whose expertise exceeds your own. Whatever your audience may be, it will have more variety than your classmates, and it will appear in more places than a discussion board. So how do you consider your audience?

When writers consider their audience, they are able to engage them through appropriate content and word choice. and Knowing that our students will work and write in many fields, and that the purpose for writing may also shift, we have created resources for considering the audience:

• Our web page on audience gives an overview of the topic
• On the blog, Nik looks at how he learned to consider his audience and adjust his language and tone.
• We also have a WriteCast episode on audiences.
• How do you know your audience? Amber shares tips for reaching audiences on the blog.
• And if you are thinking of writing for publication, here is how to plan choosing your audience.

The Walden University Writing Center creates content to help students with a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. We host webinars, and offer paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast.

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