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Objective versus subjective writing

Completely objective

Dont use the first person

Write from a general persons perspective

Superficially objective

Presentation order

Subjective writing

Think about your audience

Two types of audience

Audience knowledge

Laypeople

Getting the message across to laypeople

Analogies

Managers

Experts

Hostile or friendly

Unknown audiences

What does the audience want

Think about your audience

Before you sit down and write anything, for example, a story, a poem, or a movie review, you need to think about your intended audience. These are the people who you expect to read what you write.

Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your audience is whoever is marking your work. While it’s true that a lot of the time work is just read by a marker and not by anyone else, it’s still important to write with an intended audience in mind.

Writing for a specific audience is just like behaving differently in different situations. At a funeral, it’s not (usually) appropriate to jump around and cheer. Instead, the mood or tone is usually quiet, sombre, reflective and often sad. However, if you’re at a football match, a totally different type of behaviour would be appropriate. You might be cheering, shouting, jeering, screaming, laughing, crying, and many other things. Different situations require different behaviours, just like different audiences require a different tone of writing.

Click here to move on to the next topic: Two types of audience