3.4 Knowing Your Audience: Values and Beliefs
Erin Kelly; Sara Humphreys; Nancy Ami; and Natalie Boldt
Most people know intuitively that the same type of writing isn’t appropriate for every situation. To use a simple example, you might write a text to a friend that looks something like this:
This text seems fine. That is, your friend would likely see “Hey” as an appropriate greeting, maybe even as a polite way to begin a text. The LOL isn’t meant to express laughter but show camaraderie. The basic idea here is that you want to confirm the deadline for an upcoming assignment for a political science class. You have reached out to someone in that class for clarification. In fact, this text respects your friend by assuming they are busy and would appreciate a quick message rather than an email or some other form of communication. You have made it easy for this friend to send back the due date, to which you might reply “Thx” as an expression of appreciation. Maybe you could even reply with a smiley-face emoji.
But if you want information about a deadline from your course instructor, it would be less fitting to email the same text. In this situation, you would more likely write something like the following:
Dear Professor Mirza,
I am a student in your 10:30 am section of POLI 202 (Intro to Political Theory). I know that our second essay assignment is due next week, but I need to ask for clarification about the deadline. The course syllabus I have says this assignment needs to be submitted on Monday at noon, but the course site says the submission date is Wednesday at noon. Would you please tell me the actual deadline? Thank you for your help.
Stu Dent
Notice the difference between the text and the email? The formal greeting and use of complete sentences signal that you are aware this email is being exchanged in a professional and academic context. This email also makes some assumptions about its reader. Because this person (an instructor who might teach several courses and hundreds of students in a term) might not know who you are, which class you’re asking about, or which assignment you are asking about, you need to offer that information. Since this instructor and you are likely busy, you keep your email reasonably brief and to the point – but you also need to show respect for the instructor’s time by suggesting you have tried other ways of getting the information you need before asking for help. This all builds your credibility with your instructor, and shows that you have understood the rhetorical situation.
This is all well and good, but audiences for academic assignments can be, as we said earlier, tricky.
3.4.1 Who Is the Audience for My Academic Writing Assignments?
When you think about the audience for an academic assignment that you need to write for a class, it might seem obvious who your reader is: The instructor who will be grading the assignment. Indeed, the person marking your work will be reading it with great care and attention. But th