The Right Audience

Writing for the right audience is one of those polarizing and obvious tricks we are taught in grammar school. Fulweiler explains that there are multiple audiences across the multiple genres and that it is important to be able to understand and manipulate those slight variables to be able to use the most effective writing possible in each situation. So we learn to identify the various types of writing, the various types of audiences and the one or two identifiable and interchangeable circumstances between them.

I am best at reading my audience when it is right in front of me. I know how to look for body language, how to read facial expressions, I've even gotten pretty good at reading between the lines, breaking down what people say and understanding what they actually mean, but this is all in person. This all about business and interpersonal psychology. But writing for an absent audience is a very different beast. When you have a very obvious written audience, ie. teacher, boss etc. you can anyicipate how they will react to each stament and adjust accordingly the next few sentences so as to better suit their needs.

 But not all audiences are this obvious or readable. The intended audience is predictable and those changeable features I mentioned above for a live audience can apply here, but the unintended audience, the family member that strolls upon your writing or the email that was accidentally sent to "reply all" instead of just "reply" can't be written with these circumstances in mind. People will still come across my writing, whether in this post or on a stupid email I wrote or the marginal notes I wrote in the text book last semester that I then sold back to the library and I can't predict who will see what or how they will interpret it. All I can do is try to best-present and represent myself in any and all situations. This is a blog. This is meant to be like a free-write blog, and while I try to free write, I still glance back every few sentences to check grammar and syntax and though I leave some of the more simple contradictions in, I still go back to fix the glaring issues. I don't want to look like an idiot... But I also want to write simply and clearly. Persuasively and nonchalantly...