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Top school in India
By:
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Chapter 4: Addressing
Audiences
Dr. Alan Haffa
Please Silence Cell Phones
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Assess Your Audience
Cultural background
Educational background
Religious experience
Practical experience
Political Ideology
Age
Gender
Profession
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How Knowing your Audience can
help you Present your Case
Language you use
Writing Style
Slant
Tone
Types of arguments
Evidence
Kinds of authorities cited
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Example: Tuition Hike
Student Newspaper
Blunt language
Emotional slant
Sarcastic comments
about administration
Call for student
protest or letters to
the administration
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School Board
Formal Language
Express sympathy for
schools financial
challenge
Offer a compromise
solution
General Audience
In general, avoid
General Audience reads Time, Newsweek, local
newspaper
Average age of 35
High school graduate with a couple of years of
college
Middle Class income
Diverse race, religion, and politics
Reasonably intelligent but not an expert in your
topic
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Getting to know your Audience
Where do readers stand on the issue?
Do they know anything about it?
How might they have learned about it?
How do they interpret the issue?
How does the issue affect them personally?
Are they hostile to my stand on the issue?
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How do I want my readers to view
the issue?
If they are hostile to my view, how can I
persuade them to listen to me?
If they are neutral, how can I persuade
them to consider my viewpoint?
If they are sympathetic to my views, what
new information can I shed on the issue
and how can I inspire them to take action?
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Emphasize Shared Beliefs and
Experiences
What beliefs and values do we share?
What concerns about the issue do we
have in common?
What common life experiences have we
had?
How can I make my readers aware of our
connection?
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Use Dialogue to Gain Insight
Dialogue with people who fit your target
demographic
Yes, but conversations useful in identifying
their concerns so you can try to address
them in essay
Dialogue also useful to identify shared
values and beliefs that can be emphasized
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Adapting to your Readers’ Attitudes
if Neutral
Fill in the background
Present a Balanced Picture
Personalize the Issues; how the problem
will affect them personally
Show respect
Avoid appeal to pity and oversimplication
or false dilemma
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Addressing a Friendly Audience
Avoid appealing to prejudices
Avoid ad hominem or ad populum
Offer new information about the issue;
they may share your view but may not
know the most up-to-date information
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Addressing an Unfriendly Audience
Seek Common Ground and remind audience of it
repeatedly
Example: Sr. citizens and higher taxes for schools
Acknowledge the legitimacy of audience’s
concerns; don’t belittle or minimize them.
Convey a positive attitude
Treat them with respect
Use good sources of information and authorities
that will be respected by everyone, not just
partisans
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Importance of Clear
Communication: Word Choice
Denotative and Connotative Meaning
A “jihad against smoking”
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Word Choice: Be Specific
Denotative scale of specificity: page 111
General words are useful in common
conversation
Writing, however, requires greater
specificity because audience cannot ask
you to clarify
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Figurative Language
“Yesterday, it was 96 degrees and very
humid.”
Or, “Yesterday the air was like warm glue.”
Figurative language equates one thing
with another.
Simile: use of “like” “as” “than”: A school of
minnows shot by me like pelting rain.”
“His arms are as big as hams.”
“They’re meaner than junkyard dogs.”
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Metaphor
Omitting the word “like, as, than” makes it
a metaphor.
“This calculus problem is a real pain in the
neck.”
“The crime in this city is a cancer out of
control.”
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Cautions using Figurative
Language
Avoid cliches: these are figures that are so
common they have lost their freshness and they
sound unimaginative
Mixed Metaphors: combining different
metaphors that don’t go together well.
“The heat of his expression froze them in their
tracks.”
“The experience left a bad taste in her eyes.”
“The arm of the law has two strikes against it.”
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Euphemisms
Using a nice sounding word to say something harsh
and biting and critical
Downsizing or Restructuring for massive layoffs
and firings
Revenue enhancement for raising taxes
Gaming Industry for gambling
Passed away—died
Socially disadvantaged—poor
Be sure that the reader can understand what you
are saying
Be sure that they don’t sanitize your writing so
much that it loses its impact
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Definitions and Technical Terms
Be sure to offer a clear definition of any
technical terms to key words
What is “legal marriage” and how is it
defined differently than “civil union”?
Don’t spend too much time defining words
your audience would know.
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Use of Humor or Sarcasm
Be wary of creating a negative, hostile tone
by using sarcasm
It can be done with a sympathetic audience,
but again, be sure that it isn’t over the top
and that it doesn’t take the place of facts and
arguments. As a way to get attention it may
be appropriate.
If writing to a neutral audience or contrary
one, humor that makes fun of yourself is the
best and sarcasm must be avoided at all
costs.
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Sonnet 116: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare