My first impression of “audience” in class led me to think it would be the easiest element. After reviewing what it is in class I would soon figure out how difficult the audience can be.

The rhetorical element for the audience is not only determining who you are writing to, but analyzing why you are writing to that audience in particular. You as a writer need to have a research process into the audience’s background information, level of education, work experience, and how they feel on the topic. Usually all this information goes in an audience analysis sheet. There was an audience analysis sheet made after every assignment to show who the audience was for that assignment. The audience analysis sheet helps show who your assignment was meant for, and correlates to your paper’s audience. This shows how your audience determines the content of your paper and how your paper is structured. 

An example of the audience identifying process can be seen with my audience analysis sheet done on Vatthana Chin, the facilities planning director at CCNY (see figure 1 below). Since my memo assignment was on fixing the floor layout of the NAC building, making her my main audience was important because she deals with those issues. Having her as my main audience is important in that regard. Now there can be multiple audiences other than your primary audience.There can be a secondary and tertiary audience and they’re more of the people who aren’t as important to the topic. By doing the audience analysis sheet on Vatthana Chin it helped me consider what to write for this memo and it will help you write your pieces more efficiently.

The memo “Request for a new layout scheme for the NAC” can be found in the dropdown menu under “Revised Assignments”, on the submenu called “Memo”.

Figure 1. Audience Analysis Sheet on Vatthana Chin