Why Is The Audience Important In Academic Writing?

Why Is The Audience Important In Academic Writing?
The need for academics and scientists to write about their research in ways that will successfully communicate with a varied audience is not new. Formal publications of advanced research have in the past tended to be produced for specialists and experts, but not in all cases – some books and articles have always assumed a more general readership as well. When writing grant applications, research proposals and progress reports, scholars have traditionally had to anticipate readers who will know a great deal about their subject area as well as readers who know very little even about the discipline. The internet as a powerful tool for disseminating research and building careers has greatly increased the need to write for a wide and varied audience, and even the most specialised academic and scientific journals will now ask that manuscripts submitted for publication be written in ways that are accessible to readers of widely varied knowledge bases.

The problem for scholars is that advanced research is often complex, based on a long history of scholarship, intimately connected to the methodologies and language specifically developed in the discipline and thick with analyses, logical speculation and critical thinking. No one would argue that such material is easy to communicate effectively to any audience; far more challenging is a richly mixed readership in which one person might be intimately familiar with the field and its recent developments, whereas another might be entirely new to the material. The following tips may make the task a little easier.

• Organise your content carefully for a logical progression and be sure to use effective transitions in your text to develop your arguments clearly for your readers.
• Give your document a structure that outlines both your research processes and your primary argument. Using divisions and headings of various levels to break complex information down into smaller bites renders difficult material more palatable and digestible.
• Explain the importance of your research in ways that tend to be appealing to universal audiences. Does it develop and test new methodology that challenges the assumptions of earlier researchers? That is an excellent point to highlight for the specialists in your audience, but the results that confirm the seriousness of the challenge and the validity of your approach among experts will also interest a more general audience that is affected by the problem under investigation.
• Use visual aids wherever possible. If you have reams of data to report, set them in tables or lists. If you have complicated laboratory settings to describe, provide images. If your argument will take readers to places they may not know, give them maps. Be sure to label each one with care and to refer accurately to them in your discussion so that you guide readers to your visual aids at appropriate moments in your research story.
• Play up the story aspects of your research as much as possible. Everyone loves a story, even senior researchers, and they are the ones who will best understand the plot of your research and appreciate its new twists.
• Never forget the power of space. It can provide breaks and by its varying size suggest levels of division. It offers a break for the mind as well – a precious moment to absorb new information before moving on to the next point or topic – and it can even calm readers while contributing to an attractive document. Use it well.
• Proofread and correct your text with care. Errors are particularly confusing for readers who are trying to absorb new and complex material, and they are especially obvious to those who know the field and its scholarship well.