Bargain-Priced Candy Hearts and the Importance of Audience
We've reached my favorite part of February: when all of the Valentine's Day candy goes on sale.
Digging through a
little box of colorful hearts, I can't help reading each little message as it comes up: "love", "laugh", "be mine",
"smile", "you & me", "cute", "rock
star", "hug me", and others are fairly obvious. But then there
are hearts with messages like: "TTYL", "DM me",
"lol" and "LYMY". I actually do understand the first three
(talk to you later, direct-message me, and laugh out loud) but the fourth is a
complete mystery to me. (EDIT: I've looked it up and apparently it stands for
"love you, miss you".)
This variety of mini-comments makes me think of what we mean when we advise writers to consider their audience. Maybe some of you already knew what LYMY meant. Maybe others would be confused by hearts reading "XOXO" or "BFF". Fortunately, the candy will taste the same whether you know that x's and o's are sometimes used to represent kisses and hugs in correspondence, or that BFF stands for "best friends forever," but scholarly writing does not benefit from the same sugary advantage.
Anything we write
has an intended audience--even if that intended audience is ourselves or an
intended audience of no one. When you write for coursework there is the obvious
audience of the faculty who will grade the work, but there is also often an
implied audience. Perhaps you've been instructed to write a lesson plan to
share with another educator; a business memo to be shared with a large
corporation; an interpretation of and diagnosis for a certain case study.
You'll of course want to make sure you respond to each component of the
assignment prompt, but you should also consider who you're conceptually writing
for.
-
What kind of information can you assume your audience will already
have about the topic?
o
Would you need to explain what TTYL stands for?
-
What context does your audience need?
o
The fact that they are Valentine’s candy would suggest that
messages like “smile” or “call me” have a different sentiment than they would coming
from a photographer or a business card.
-
What are you ultimately hoping to achieve with regards to your
audience?
o
When you send a Valentine to a friend, the message will likely be
different than the one you send to your romantic interest.
To help you remember how to acknowledge the importance of your intended audience, here’s a somewhat forced acronym relating back to candy hearts:
How: how are you expected to present your information? The mode of communication will provide some clues into who your intended audience might be.Expectation: what
can you expect your intended reader to already know?
Additional: what
extra background information will your reader need you to provide in order to
fully understand what you’re trying to say?
Response: is there
something you hope your reader will do with the information after reading? Are
there potential questions or arguments you could circumvent by addressing them
in your writing?
Task: what is the ultimate
task you’ve been given with regards to the assignment? Would your reader be
able to easily determine it based on what you’ve written?
To my intended
audience: I hope you had a fun Valentine’s Day—or are at least similarly
benefiting from reduced-price treats. And I hope this acronym and post in general
are memorable enough to help you in your next writing assignment!
Kacy Walz is a writing instructor from St. Louis, MO. She is currently working on a PhD in Literature from the University of Missouri. Along with her work on the blog, Kacy also cohosts the Walden Writing Center podcast. She enjoys piña coladas and getting caught in the rain..png)
Can You Persuade Your Audience Like a Jedi? Appealing to the Forces of Rhetoric
It was clear he did not know what I was talking about. Lucky for him, I was happy to geek out and breakdown the rhetorical triangle—a visual diagram that organizes Aristotle’s three types of appeals for persuading an audience. These appeals are:
Ethos (ethics) - By using ethos, a writer or speaker builds credibility and authority with the audience through the inclusion of evidence that supports their argument.
Logos (logic) - Arguments that use logos rely on reason to persuade the reader. Logical arguments are built on facts and use clear and concise language.
Pathos (emotion) - A speaker or writer uses pathos to appeal to a reader’s emotions. These types of arguments may draw passion, anger, or sympathy from the reader, thus persuading them to use their feelings to guide their decisions.
David nodded along as I explained the three appeals, and when I asked if the triangle made sense, he replied nonchalantly, “Yeah, it’s like Star Wars.”
Now it was my turn to give him a blank state. “Go on,” I told him.
He proceeded to breakdown how the three main characters in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: Luke, Han, and Leia, provide excellent examples of ethos, pathos, and logos. In the film, the trio journeys through the galaxy to destroy the evil Empire’s Death Star, a massive spaceship that can detonate a planet with one shot.
Luke as Ethos
As they overcome many obstacles in trying to complete their mission, Luke relies on ethos, or ethics, to establish his credibility as a moral expert and persuade his friends and guide his actions. As a Jedi,—a “type of peace keeping space monk” according to David—Luke ‘s decisions are based on what he views as right or ethically sound for the good of others. Throughout the film, Han, Leia, and other characters fighting the Dark Side come to believe in Luke and value him as a leader because of his trustworthy character and moral actions.
While you may not be able to use your moral code to save the galaxy, you can provide examples of yourself as an ethical writer and researcher in your scholarship, in order to best appeal to an academic audience. When you’re writing an academic paper, citing research shows the audience that you value the work of other researchers and that you also care about the accuracy of your own content. In turn, the audience trusts the claims you make because they know you are a trustworthy source.
Han and Pathos
Han is the opposite of Luke. Whenever a dangerous scenario begins to unfold, Han acts on his feelings with passion and anger, rather than trying to justify an argument with reason or a moral code. He is also an expert at appealing to others’ emotions and throughout the film he flirts and flatters his way out of a many risky situations. What you can learn from Han is what not to do in scholarly writing.
Emotional appeals of anger or approval convey to an audience that you have not critically considered peer-reviewed research. These types of appeals usually rely on biased language and emotional reactions, depending on the type of audience, rather than concision and clarity to relay facts. While you shouldn’t rely on pathos to support an academic argument, you could effectively use pathos in marketing copy or fundraising to reach an audience more open to emotional appeals.
Leia’s Logos
Leia would never rely on emotions to make an argument. Han’s reactions and Luke’s moral code are illogical to the analytical Leia, who uses facts and possible outcomes when making decisions. Leia is a high-ranking official in the resistance to the Empire because she can present organized facts to the other officers. While her logic doesn’t always persuade Luke and Han, she is able to analyze the facts in front of her and make logical appeals to the appropriate audience such as generals and commanders.
Making a logical argument may not work in arguments with a friend or partner, but in an academic or professional context, the audience will be more receptive to factual evidence you can provide in support of your argument.
At different points in the movie, Luke, Han, and Leia find success when their rhetorical choices appeal to the right audience. When writing a paper, the arguments you make must also convey your ethical choices and appeal to your reader through logic, while avoiding emotional and possibly biased claims. In persuading me that Star Wars was an excellent example of Aristotle’s triangle, David used logic to present evidence from the film; ethos, because he is a self-proclaimed expert and Star Wars nerd; and pathos to appeal to my love of the franchise.
David, on the other hand, just claims he used the force.
Tasha Sookochoff is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Along with earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Stout and Depaul University, Tasha has written documentation for the U.S. House of Representatives that increases government transparency, blogged for DePaul University, copy-edited the Journal of Second Language Writing, tutored immigrants and refugees at literacy centers, and taught academic writing to college students.
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