Adapting to the Audience

When giving a speech, presentation, or in writing a paper one of the major concerns you should have is your audience. Who is your audience, you ask? Your audience is the majority of the people who will be hearing, seeing, or reading your work. Audiences can be friendly (they like what you are saying), neutral (they don't care what you are saying), or hostile (they dislike what you are saying). Each type of audience merits a different approach to how you deal with your information.

Here is a link to a tip sheet with some helpful hints for each of these three audience types provided by the Writing Center.

EDIT:: I would add that there are two more categories that an audience falls into: knowledgeable and un-knowledgeable. This factor determines the kind of language you use and the level of explanation terms merit. With a knowledgeable audience (e.g. an article in a national physics review) the language tends to be more academic and technical with a greatly reduced amount of explanation with terms. With an un-knowledgeable audience (regular papers and articles) the language uses more vernacular and general terms. If any technical terms are introduced they are explained in the course of the writing.