Audience Awareness 02/04/2010 Assignment

Bradford McKeon

ENC 1102

Audience Awareness Article Assignment

02/04/2010

“Understanding a Writer’s Awareness of Audience”

Carol Berkenkotter

The purpose of Carol Berkenkotter’s research and paper, was to see if writers with more training and experience think about their audience more than writers who do not have this training in rhetorical theory. After researching ten subjects Berkenkotter started to find that it depended on the individual writer as to how they addressed their audience. For example, some writers moved towards a persuasive essay topic, while others did informative or personal narrative. Their topic was to write and think about what they would say to a group of high school students about their careers. Based on how the writer thought the audience would react, they came up with their writing. The outcome was that those who tried to persuade their audience stayed much more focused on the topic. The final conclusion was that a writer’s discipline affects their planning of content when addressing an audience, not necessarily how they view the audience.