The Reader Matters

1301 Words3 Pages

How many times have you left an article half read? If you are like me, probably many times. When there is no context, it is like listening to someone talk in a foreign language. As a reader, we feel out of place, perhaps even unwelcome. So why are we bored with some writers while compelled to read some others? In her article “Writing for an Audience” Linda Flower, professor of English at Carnegie-Mellon University, focuses on the importance of knowing your audience for effective writing. She states that persuasive writers analyze their audience and pinpoint fundamental differences in knowledge, attitudes, and needs between themselves and the targeted audience. Flower asserts that in order to teach the main point; writers must create “a common ground,” one that reduces differences between the writer and the reader. She concludes that the goal of writers is to share their knowledge and make the reader see the world from their perspective, even if it is just for a second, despite the differences with the targeted readers. This is exactly what Bill Bryson achieves in his article “ Good English Bad English.” He meets Flower’s criteria of an effective writer. Bryson is a successful writer because he creates a “common ground” to “close the gap” in critical differences by tailoring his paragraph structure, complexity of his writing, and his tone to his targeted audience—general reader with some college level education.

Bryson forms well-structured paragraphs, which are clean, concise, accessible, and forceful for the general reader. He does not forget that his audience is the general reader with some college education. There are some conventions a writer follows when dealing with a larger audience such as maintaining a c...

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... they were giving service to the targeted reader. Writers analyze their audience, whose previous knowledge on the topic, attitudes towards the topic and what they need to know on the topic, because audience is matters for them. Next step is tailoring their writing according to the targeted reader, what tone they will write, how they will structure their paragraphs, and what information they will give. As a result, the reader will read it and understand what the writer is saying. At this point mission accomplished. Wasn’t this the main point of writing anyway?

Works Cited
Bryson, Bill. “Good English and Bad English.” Exploring Language. Ed.

Gary Goshgarian. San Francisco: Pearson, 2010. 159-167. Print.

Flower, Linda. “Writing for an Audience.” Exploring Language. Ed.

Gary Goshgarian. San Francisco: Pearson, 2010. 98-101. Print.

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