Analyzing My Audience

Here, I'm looking at some of the key aspects of the audience I will be writing for in my example/explanation essay of a rhetorical analysis.  This will help me better understand how I should go about writing my essay.

Guthrie, John. "CORI Middle School Reading." 1/24/13 via Wikimedia Commons.
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I'm writing for incoming students in my major, environmental science.  However, I'm also doing this as an academic assignment, so my tone and quality of my writing must reflect that.  The audience might believe that writing a rhetorical analysis in college will be the same as writing one in high school.  Which high school the members of my audience attended will determine what kind of understanding they have in regards to rhetorical analysis.

My audience will begin reading my paper with the notion that they will learn how to write a rhetorical analysis on a collegiate level.  They want to see explanations of what a rhetorical situation is and what rhetorical strategies are.  They will expect to be informed on the breakdown of what audience, speaker, context, pathos, ethos, and logos mean, and how to understand if those arguments are effective or not.  I will need to provide not only explanation, but also examples to clarify.

In regards to the actual issue of water shortage, since the audience is comprised of people interested in environmental science, they will probably be sympathetic to the argument of my article, like I am.  Those who wish to enter environmental science usually already are aware of at least some environmental issues, and water is a big one.

Hopefully, my audience will agree with the arguments I'm making in how to correctly perform a rhetorical analysis for this field.  I want my instructions to be clear and helpful.  It is possible that they might disagree with the information I present, especially if they were set in a certain way from high school.  Hopefully my audience will be open to breaking some habits if they need to, and won't insist on continuing doing something the incorrect way.

I want to be as helpful as I can in relating to my audience.  I want to show understanding of the level of understanding they already have, and build from there.  I don't want to intimidate my audience, because that will make my argument much less effective.  I have to use rhetorical strategies in my own writing about rhetorical analysis, and establish my credibility as a college student, and prove that my arguments are reasonable.  The best way to present this information to my audience is through direct instruction that relate to an example, which is why I've been working on my own rhetorical analysis.


REFLECTION

Looking at Grace and Stef's posts, I think that I've spent adequate time reflecting about the audience for my paper.  Most of what I was saying and the points I was bringing up in this post were similar to my peers', which is good.  In terms of the actual rhetorical strategies for my paper, I found from looking at Grace's that a logical approach is probably most effective.  I would also add that ethos is important, because we first have to establish credibility and show we can relate to our audience since we share a major.  Pathos doesn't seem like it will be as effective of a strategy for this audience.