Audience Awareness Assignment

Molly Smith
Kelsey Sauer
Februay 3, 2010

Our article, Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Published Writer follows credited author, Donald Murray. His writing process is examined as he is given three different tasks. In stage one, he is writing for his own work. Every minute he spent drafting was recorded through a think aloud protocol. This was an easy task for him. The third stage of examination was easy for him as well. His task was to revise an article for a professional journal. Readers of the professional journal are the typical audience he writes for. It was the second stage where he had trouble getting started. He was given a task which specified audience, subject, and purpose. He was asked to write to readers of Jack and Jill Magazine. The audience of the magazine is young readers, who he is unfamiliar with. He didn’t know where and how to start because his vision of audience was unclear. It was when he remembered the daughter of a man he met the previous night, he was able to in vision his readers and finally get started. Carol Berkenkotter, the author of this article and observer of Murray is proving that without a clear sense of audience, your paper may not be appealing or appropriate. Maintaining audience awareness is crucial when writing.