Audiences
Transcript
James Christensen: I work for a number of audiences, with my art, and I think the writing is directed kind of the same way. If I’m writing a nursery rhyme book, if I’m writing for children, then I try to find a voice that works there. If I’m trying a more scholarly address to give at BYU, then I put a lot bigger words in it.
Claudia Laycock: My target audience is not only the litigants and their attorneys, but the appellate courts and so I’m writing for a broad audience who will be reviewing what I write. In the process of writing for the appellate courts you’re also really writing for other judges too. I had a case recently where I was affirmed. And it’s always fun to read the opinion and see that they quoted me in the opinion. And it’s much more fun if you’re being affirmed when they quote you than quoting you for the stupid things you might have said.
Geoffrey Germane: The influence of the audience on what we write or how we present is very significant. Usually the audience that is most influential in what we write is the small audience that we present to, in other words, when we present in a meeting, a technical meeting where there might be half a dozen people involved. Those people are relying on my opinions so that they can then perform their work and develop their own opinions. The audience has to be considered, because we’re not writing to—our reports are to a group that is very focused on the matters that we are talking about. It’s not a general group at all. It’s not a jury that we are writing to, we are writing to other engineers and attorneys and judges.
Shanna Butler: My freelance writing is mostly geared at children and teens.
Susan Meyer: A lot of the research that I publish is in traditional scientific journals, what we call “peer reviewed journals.” I also publish a lot in what’s known as the “gray literature” in science, which is a lot of government sponsored publications that aren’t as strictly reviewed but have wide circulations among the users.
Traditionally what we call the gray literature has been printed literature—government bulletins, symposium proceedings, general technical proceedings. A lot of it is still printed but is also available online. It is mainly used by the management agencies, people who have really busy jobs don’t really have time to keep track of the primary science literature so these are sort of digests. They are the take home messages that are written, more aimed at managers. I am in symposium proceedings and things like that. Plus I also write quite a bit for the popular press.
I wrote a little book on the plant ecology of Capitol Reef National Park that they sell in their visitor’s center down there, that’s pretty fun.
I have published some in American Nurseryman. I do a lot with native plant horticulture—trying to get people to use these plants in their landscapes so I have written a lot of promotional materials trying to get people to do that in Native Plants journal.
Susan Black: As a professor, I am expected to write for the scholarly community. I make sure I know what is the top tier journals are in my field and make sure that I am always addressing that. I need to also make sure that I am continuing to write for the scholarly community by having books published outside of the LDS environment. For example, one that I have collaborated on with colleagues, Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo Legion, is coming out by Arthur Clark and the University of Oklahoma. So, one part of what I write is for the scholarly community. I am, however, very anxious to get the word out there about Joseph Smith, about Jesus Christ, about the Restoration. So I also write for popular consumption. And so you’d say this last year I wrote for a publisher out of Connecticut that said they are atheist, but if I could write on Christ and make them money, they would be happy to sign me up. They have now done four books for me that appear in 1200 different distributing locations, and one of those locations is Costco.
Abe Mills: The audience that we’re writing to is very important because depending on what you’re writing; for instance on the websites, you really have got to appeal to a lot of different people. We have emails that we send out and we have to really appeal to everybody on the email list. We have got like five thousand people on our email list they can range from age 60 and above down to little kids who are 4 or 5 years old. So when we send that out we are going to have to send out an email to try and fit that whole scope of people. Each email that you write is going to be a little bit different, even though you might be talking about the same thing.
Terry Olson: I think the first thing that you need to give up is writing for yourself. You need to write for someone that you think this information will be valuable to, or matter to: if it’s professionals, I start at a certain level, if it’s students I start at a different level. The level being what will be most meaningful to them, what will assist them in the way they are tomorrow, either in their personal life or in their professional endeavors. That’s where my starting point is: (1) to remind myself that I am not writing for me and (2) keeping the audience in mind is important, practically. I don’t do a very good job, by the way, of keeping in mind “What journal is this a good audience for?” That is something that my colleagues help beat me up side the head a bit and get me to hone and narrow and ask that question, “Which journal would be interested in this kind of material?”