Analyzing your document’s audience is one of the most important things your can do as you plan, write, and revise your work. Even if an assignment does not explicitly identify a target readership, your work will have a reader (or readers). Your work’s audience and context will drive many of your decisions about your work’s length, approach, scope, organization, language, details, and format.
Some Useful Handouts
A Quick Guide to the “Traditional” Academic Essay in U.S. Academic Settings
Audience Analysis, from David A. McMurrey’s Online Technical Writing Handbook
This is a chapter from McMurrey’s very highly-regarded (and frequently cited) online textbook. This section profiles common kinds of readers in technical (and business) industries and writing situations, and it offers advice on using that information to plan and write your documents.
Academic vs. Business Writing, from the Academic Center of the University of Houston-Victoria This handout offers a clear, efficient description of 5 important differences between “work and academic writing.”
Some Useful Web Resources
The following links can help you analyze and understand your audience as you plan your text:
Preparing to Write, Understanding Writing Situations, Audience, and Adapting to Your Audience, from Colorado State University
This thorough writing guide contains short blurbs about topics that writers must consider when planning their writing. Especially helpful here is the article about “Adapting to Your Audience.”
Working with Topics, from Colorado State University
This excellent resource provides advice and examples for developing assigned topics as well as for generating ideas for your own topics. Individual topics pen in new pages, but the entire handout is printable.
Understanding the Rhetorical Triangle, from Indiana University 
This link gives a brief explanation about Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle. Understanding the rhetorical triangle can help you see how writers must take into consideration the existence of audience and text. This short article also explains the rhetorical concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos.
How to Blog for a Global Audience
This blog, by Darren Rowse, shares 5 tips from Liz of Pocket Cultures, “an independent site which aims to provide a guide to world culture,” on how to develop a blog “that is friendly to those from around the world.”
