Writing for Your Audience

The textbook immediately establishes the concept of writing for your audience. Throughout my previous English classes, the intent has been to be wordy, to sound prestigious, and to write about as much as you know. The textbook takes a stance that there is writing completed for educational purposes and writing completed for practical purposes. When you write a memo at work meant for your boss, you don't want to be wordy. You want to be to the point. Your boss will not care about your vocabulary, only what you're trying to say. In this instance, knowing and writing for your audience can make or break your career.

In the chapter on reader-centered correspondence, the correspondence cliche list (p. 528 in the text) took me by surprise. I understand its recommendation to use plain language instead of wordy expressions that you don't use in ordinary conversation, but I have always thought those expression were customary in business language. I recently had to write an IRS letter, and those types of expressions were used throughout the letter. Maybe the IRS is different?

The chapter on proposal writing was interesting. I like the use of a proposal written by someone in a company suggesting a change versus a proposal written in response to a RFP. I think the harder scenario would be the case where you are coming up with the proposal yourself in response to an idea that you had. In this case you would have to be sensitive to your job while also trying to improve things around you. It would be a touchy situation.

With the textbook putting so much of an emphasis on knowing your audience before you write something, what about a case where you don't know your audience? Does this ever happen? Or are there always ways to determine your audience?