Mindless "test prep" by English teachers isthus an ironic error. If we really understood test-ing- its Purpose and Audience- we would notmake this mistake and kill off good writing in theprocess.
Writing should not be "mindless" it should be focused but persuasive and unique.
Then, you real-ize- humbly, as I have- that you cannot possiblyreach everyone in your world (in my case, the worldof education). You usually have to find your mostsimpatico audience, to find your niche as a
you need to figure out what YOUR audience is, then play to it.
Too often we teach Writing Skills andthe Writing Process rather than helping studentsfind something worth communicating.
Teachers should encourage students to have more power in their writing instead of tearing them down for it.
he consequences of your writingmatter for a specific audience in a specific situation
Your writing can be powerful so it is important that you focus it in the right direction.
But English teachers often have too narrow asense of what constitutes a realistic challenge forcausing a genuine effect in developing writingprompts and scoring rubrics
Writing for education and writing for the real world are different.
The task demands in the newspaper ad makea further point about authentic writing: say it con-cisely, have great empathy for your client/audience,English Journal 98.5 (2009): 29-37 29This content downloaded from 98.48.77.226 on Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:21:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Don't get so stuck in a rubric that you forget the focus and target of your writing.
view. Rather, it would seem that egocentricincapacity to take account of the reader and cope wiof writing at th
Novice writers may need to take a step back and reassess their writing to maintain an ego free and reader friendly piece.
he composition. To the writand state probably seem obvious-they "go without sacisely this kind of unwarranted assumption about whaous that points up the egocentri
you need to be clear in your writing, do not omit any possibly important details.
ds
Writers need to not take their audience for granted. You need to write with the assumption that your readers will npot immediately understand you.
nce. The cure for such problems, from an informa-tional perspective, lies in instruction which focuses both on common sourcesof difficulty for readers and on general writing techniques-use of dovetail-ing, proleptic devices, thematic tags, parallel forms, and so forth--which canreduce a reader's uncertainty and thus aid comprehe
To properly relate new and old information a writer must be clear.
eas. In sum, the writer's job is to facilitate tintake of information, designing a text so that its readers will encounterobstacles to their understanding and will thus comprehend the text witminimal amount of effort.
For readers to get a full understanding and memory of the text writers should constantly relate "old" and "new" information together.
Two of the most important principles are to omitneedless words and to keep related words togeth
Structure your writing in a way that keeps attention and focuses in on the important facts.
ass with water. Readers "process"linguistic input into a conceptual code that must be intion already stored in memory. Since the goal of writinginto that memory store, a writer needs to understancess works, paying particular attention to the kindsencounter in their efforts to extract information from texts
Text has to be given to readers in a way that makes it accessible to all. Especially when the goal of your work is to inform.
asive darts. As John Jor"have problems like those ofselect their targets and plot ttrajectory and making due allvelocity, effects of earth's roma
I like this analogy
tten communication, however, thewriter often has only a vague and quite general conception of who thereaders of a piece of writing will be. To-
You don't always get to see your audience, if your work is available to the public everyone can access it, making your audience larger than what your intended audience for your paper was/is.
"4 Moreover, when we teach studentsthat all writing involves argument-that the audience is typically anadversary-we often mislead them into taking a more assertive stance than iswarranted for many of the writing situations they will encounter either incollege or in the world of wor
When thinking of audience you need to think about the like minded individuals who might read your piece. Not every work has to have a goal to persuade.
those in the pradapt their discourses to thesaudiences and adapting messarent com
adapting to your audience shows your maturity and forethought as a writer and speaker.
ested thatdiscourse and the types of soaffected ... suggesting th
see above
ersuade. According to thianalyze the audience's beliefs,be adapted to the par
Know your audience, if you want to persuade them think about the why, what questions they might have, or what reservations they might have.