Annotated Research: Specific Audiences

Question: Does any particular audience affect writers more than others?

Answer: “Found that community college students made more total revisions and more surface changes in particular, when writing to a teacher audience than to a counselor, high school student, or business audience.” NL Hoagland. 1984. Pp. 203-204.

Comment: Interesting finding. The teacher audience’s effect will be short-lived, though important, because teachers assign grades. The counselor and business audiences, on the other hand, can have long-term effects in evaluating the student’s writing—meaning college applications and job prospects. When the audience counts, the writing counts. RayS.

Title: “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English.” JD Marshall and RK Durst. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1986), 198-215.