Considering Audience, Purpose, Tone, and Publication

IntroductionWhat is your purpose?What are your publishing options?Who is your audience?How can you set a tone?Talk About ItYour Turn

Tech Tools in the presentation• Wikis• Edublogs.org

Introduction

Imagine that you are a filmmaker who wants to create a blockbuster romantic comedy.

Introduction

As you write the movie script, you must take into account the movie’s audience, purpose, and tone, and you must consider how the movie will be distributed, or published.

Your purpose is to entertain, so you write a lightweight comedy with appealing characters.

The tone of your script is fun and breezy, yet also sentimental.

Introduction

Your movie will be published by being shown in movie theaters, so you make sure that it is of the appropriate length.

Finally, you make sure that the movie’s story and message will appeal to teenagers, the movie’s target audience.

Introduction

Audience, purpose, tone, and publication are as important in research as they are in making movies. These four interrelated elements should drive every decision you make during the research process.

What is my purpose?

How will I publish?

Who is my audience?

What tone is appropriate?

What is your purpose?

The purpose of doing research is to answer questions and make discoveries.

However, researchers don’t just assemble a collection of facts. They synthesize information that they find and include their own experiences and insights.

The purpose of publishing research, then, is to share your discoveries and insights with an audience.

Writing research questions will help you explore your topic and pinpoint your purpose.

• How is the Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary similar to and different from the Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice?

• What themes are explored in Pride and Prejudice, and how are they updated for modern times in Bridget Jones’s Diary?

• How do the styles of writing differ in the two books?

For example, here are questions from a student researching similarities between Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the more recent Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding.

What is your purpose?

What are your publishing options?

You should consider your publishing options early in the research process.

If you know how you’ll publish your research, you can plan better. You’ll have a better idea of your audience and of the proper length, format, and tone for your project.

What are your publishing options?

There are many traditional options for publishing your research project, including

a magazine articlea class

presentationa formal research

paper

What are your publishing options?

There also are many new ways to publish your research project by using technology.

a hyperlinked research paper

a podcast

a wiki

Tech Tool: Wikis

A wiki is a collaborative Web site on which many users can post and edit content.

Wikis are publication options that allow students to post their research findings online easily.

Tech Tool: Wikis

Schools and even individual classes can create wikis for collaborative work, but individual students also can create personal wikis.

Students can learn more about their research topics by posting their research to a wiki where other people can add to it.

Tech Tool: Edublogs.org

In addition to publishing your final research project, you might consider publishing your research findings informally throughout the research process.

One way to do this is by creating your own personal blog at Edublogs.org.

You can derive many benefits from blogging while you are researching. When you blog, you can

• begin to synthesize what you are learning about your topic

• let others offer their feedback on your research project

• see how your ideas about your topic have changed between the beginning and the end of the research process

Tech Tool: Edublogs.org

Who is your audience?

Before you begin to research, identify your audience based on your topic, your purpose, and your publication format.

If you are writing for a very specific audience, you should gather information about that audience.

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For example, you might want to know your audience’s• average age

• geographic location

• interests

• educational background

Armed with this knowledge, you can better tailor your research project to your audience.

Who is your audience?

Who is your audience?

Let’s say your audience is high school students. These questions can help you think about your audience.

What parts of my topic will my audience find interesting?

My audience probably will be interested in how Bridget Jones’s Diary updates Pride and Prejudice.

What does my audience already know about my topic?

What new information does my audience need to learn?

My audience needs to know the similarities and differences between the two books.

My audience might have seen the movie version of Bridget Jones’s Diary, but it differs from the book.

It is important to communicate information at the right level of understanding to your audience.

You don’t want to waste your audience members’ time by giving information that they already know or information that is too difficult for them to understand.

Who is your audience?

For instance, if you are writing a literary paper for an audience of literature professors, you wouldn’t have to explain literary terms.

However, if your audience were made up of high school students, you would want to explain literary terms and outline the plots and themes of the books you are discussing.

Who is your audience?

The attitude that you convey through your writing is your tone. The tone of research projects can vary from informal to very formal, depending on how they will be published.

When using a formal tone, use the third-person point of view. Avoid the pronoun I.

When using a formal tone, avoid slang, colloquial expressions, or contractions.

When using an informal tone, you might use the first-person point of view and include slang, colloquial expressions, and contractions.

How can you set a tone?

How can you set a tone?

Academic and business audiences, regardless of the publication format, often require a formal tone.

Pop culture audiences, such as concert-goers, movie fans, and people who read popular Web sites, often prefer an informal tone.

The writing style of Pride and Prejudice is very witty but extremely formal, whereas Bridget Jones’s Diary revels in its British colloquialisms and slapdash abbreviations (a forerunner of today’s text messages).

The writing style of Pride and Prejudice is very witty but extremely formal, whereas Bridget Jones’s Diary revels in its British colloquialisms and slapdash abbreviations (a forerunner of today’s text messages).

Read the essay excerpts below. Which one is formal in tone?

When I first started reading Bridget Jones’s Diary, I didn’t know what to make of it. It uses strange abbreviations and British slang. I soon caught on and started enjoying the book. The way Bridget writes in her diary is the way many people write.

How can you set a tone?

If they want their movies to match their visions, filmmakers must consider their purpose, method of publication, audience, and tone during the writing process.

Conclusion

Similarly, if you consider purpose, method of publication, audience, and tone before you begin your research project, your project will have a much greater chance of success.

1. What are some consequences for failing to consider purpose, audience, and publication before beginning a research project?

Talk About It

Discuss these questions with your classmates.

2. Have you ever written a paper using a formal tone? An informal tone? What challenges did you face when using formal and informal tones?

3. Have you ever used a wiki to publish your work? Would you consider publishing on a wiki? Why or why not?

Your Turn

Blogging can be a real help during the research process.

Think about creating a blog for a research project. Answer the following questions about your blog.

1. Would you make your blog public or accessible only to certain people? Explain your answer.

2. How would you decide which suggestions from readers to incorporate and which to ignore?

4. Do you think blogging would help you synthesize what you learned about your topic? Explain.

3. Why do you think others would offer information about your topic? Would you offer help to others?

The End