Knowing your audience

     So in this blog I am going to discussion the audience I am writing to in my English 101 online course. To truly understand my audience I have to think in more of a multi layer aspect then just a cut and dry single audience. With the best of my ability, I will explain the steps, statement, and conclusion of my audience in this text.

     The first thing I must look at is if I will be writing to an academic or non-academic group. The hard part is I will be writing to both. My professor Ms. A (academic) and my classmates (non-academic). Even though Ms. A gives me a lot of freedom to get my thoughts and expressions out on paper, she also has a format she likes things to be in. To receive an appropriate grade in the course I will have to follow this format and answer the questions she is looking for. At the same time, I need to be able to reach out and connect with my non-academic reading group (classmates) and continuously strive to maintain their attention. This by itself will be a tough task, to impress both the academic and non academic group.

     When we began preparing for this blog our instructor started an online discussion thread called Knowing your Audience. We were told to ask any question we want and read the responses. Not only was this an extremely fun and interesting assignment, but it also helped me start to understand the individuals in my class.  At the beginning of my college days I always had this thought that I would be the only conservative on Campus. Everyone else would be liberal, we would butt heads, which would lead to me getting frustrated and dreading school. On a side bar I know I need to be more open minded and am working on that. So I asked the question would you consider yourself more conservative, liberal, or libertarian. I didn't want to start a huge debate, but just wanted to see where everyone was on their political beliefs. I, like I stated before, was just waiting for everyone to say liberal and get upset at me for stating I was conservative. This, however, was not the case and honestly the majority of the class could not put themselves in a category. I did guess we would have very few conservatives, which was the case, but did not think we would have so many libertarians. This question alone gave me a great picture of who I am writing to. I understand how I may have to change my writing, not my views, by toning my thoughts and feelings down a little bit. I know, at times, I am very abrasive and strong with my beliefs. The last thing I want to do during this course is offend some one by using these two traits.

     There where a lot of great questions, some that caused the class to dig deep into their morals, other questions that just made us reflect, and some quite humorous ones. All which gave me a better understanding of how I can write. For example, here are a few questions that where asked:

1) What do you want to be when you grow up?

     This question let me know there are a lot of different careers people are trying to obtain. A big piece of our class is going for some type of medical career. Which is great for me, because that is the line of work I am in. Although it is a slightly different aspect of the medical field, I know we are all big in trying to help people, and that we can connect with each other on this level. I also saw we have a great sense of humor in this class, which helps me in the long run, because I am nothing but a big goof ball.

2) What is more important: What we do or why we do it?
  
     I realized we all general came to the same conclusion, but we came about it in different ways. In general, the class answered the question evenly with what we do, how we do it, and both. This lets me know, even though we came about it a different way, everyone really had the same perception as me. I can connect with the class on a basis of this alone, seeing how a lot of my classmates agreed with me in believing both.

     Finally, I know in my non-academic group (classmates) I will have subjects I write about that will present some of my classmates as a lay person or expert. Another subject I write about might make the experts, of the previous subject, the lay person, and so on. I will have to be able to connect with both groups, be able to write well enough not to loose an experts attention on a subject, but make it understandable to a person who has never heard of the subject at hand. This will be difficult to accomplish, but I have done harder in life.

   Now that I have a better understanding about my audience I will promise them a few things. First, I will do my best not to offend, but in the same instance I want to challenge your thoughts. This is not to turn you to the "dark side" or to push my beliefs on you, but to obtain your attention with a different perspective other than your own. Second, to my professor, I will try to stay within the formats that you ask, while still making my text exciting to read for others. Third, I will put my heart and soul into everything I write to connect with everyone, because your time is valuable, and you deserve to read my best work every time.