It's not uncommon to hear teachers urge you to "think about your audience." But what does this really mean? What do you need to know about them? And how you can you use this to improve your writing? Of course, it is useful to know your audience and be able to predict how they might respond to what you've written. But there is also only so much you can know about those who will read and respond to your work. Don't let questions of audience cause undue anxiety. Rather, seek to understand your audience better (not fully), and build rapport with them as you write. Here are a few keys points to consider, and strategies to use to connect with your reader.
In your writing, you can appeal to people's different identities. We all participate in different discourse communities (school, home, church, work, etc.), and there is a difference between being addressed as an individual versus being addressed as a student, as an employee, or as a Broward County resident. While it may be impossible to feel like you know enough about your audience on a personal level to make writing decisions based on that (unless your potential audience is a single person or very small in number), you can usually consider what you know about the groups these individuals belong to when constructing your text. The communities we belong to play a strong role in determining our beliefs and values, and are often (and, sometimes, unfortunately) the basis of whether we identify with the positions of others, so they are powerful forces when trying to engage and persuade readers.
In writing studies, we sometimes refer to "audience addressed" and "audience invoked" to refer to the difference between the physical/real audience who is listening to or reading your text, and the kind of audience we want that reader to act like. In other words, readers don't have to read just as who they are, but can try to adopt the position of a certain kind of audience. In some cases, this means helping readers identify with certain values or conventions, or setting aside personal biases or experiences. It might require coming to some consensus about shared definitions or beliefs, or reminding readers of shared values or experiences. If you think the reader might be resistant to your argument, for instance, just reminding them that you hope they come to your work with an open mind and a respect for good data might prepare them to be a more receptive audience for your argument.
In some cases, you may not know who needs to hear what you have to say, and that's okay too. If we find ourselves experiencing a strong exigence to write on a topic, to make a claim, or to answer a question, it's likely that others are feeling this same exigence and will be interested in what you have to say. It might just take some work to figure out how to distribute your work to those who would be interested in it. Trust, though, that if you yourself find a topic engaging, or find a question worth answering, or find a practice problematic, that others will as well. You can always think of yourself as the initial audience of your work, especially in the initial stages of your writing where you are engaging in inquiry and trying to simply better understand your topic.
Good luck navigating issues of audience, and know that you can always reach out to the NSU Writing and Communication Center to respond to your work at any stage of the writing process.
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