1. Writing That Works | Chapter 1 Bedford/St. Martin's (c) 2013 1
Chapter One
Assessing Audience, Purpose,
and Medium: A Case Study

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Chapter One
Table of Contents
 Writer’s Checklist: Planning Your Document
 Considering Audience and Purpose: Writing for Your
Reader
 Writer’s Checklist: Assessing Context
 Writer’s Checklist: Drafting with Ethical Considerations in
Mind

3. Writer’s Checklist: Planning Your
Document
 Determine your purpose.
 Assess your audience’s needs.
 Consider the context of your writing.
 Generate, gather, and record ideas and facts.
 Establish the scope of coverage for your topic.
 Organize your ideas.
 Select the medium.
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Considering Audience and Purpose:
Writing for Your Reader
 Who is your audience?
 What do you want your audience to know, to believe, or
to be able to do after reading your writing?
 Have you narrowed your topic to best focus on what you
want your audience to know?
 What are your audience’s needs in relation to the
subject?
Try to answer each of the following questions in as much detail
as possible to help focus on your reader’s needs in relation to
your subject. This process is helpful for all types of writing, but it
will be especially important for longer, more complex tasks.

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Considering Audience and Purpose:
Writing for Your Reader (continued)
 What does your audience know about the subject?
 Do you have more than one audience?
 If you have multiple audiences, do they have different
levels of knowledge about your subject?
 What are your audience’s feelings about your subject—
sympathetic? hostile? neutral?
 Does your writing acknowledge other or contrary points
of view about the subject?
 Is your tone respectful?

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Considering Audience and Purpose:
Writing for Your Reader (continued)
 Have you selected the right medium – email, memo,
letter, brochure, blog posting, and so on – for your
subject and audience?
 Does your format enhance audience understanding?

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Writer’s Checklist: Assessing Context
 What is your professional relationship with your readers
and how might that affect the tone, style, and scope of
your writing?
 What is “the story” behind the immediate reason you are
writing; that is, what series of events or previous
communications led to your need to write?
Use the following questions as a starting point as you assess the
context for your topic:

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Writer’s Checklist: Assessing Context
(continued)
 What specific factors or values, such as business
competition, financing, and regulatory environment, are
important to your readers’ organization or department?
 What is the corporate culture in which your readers
work?
 What recent or current events within or outside an
organization or a department may influence how readers
interpret your writing?
 What national cultural differences might affect your
readers’ expectations for or interpretations of a
document?
 What medium do your readers prefer – email, memo,
letter, report, or other?

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Writer’s Checklist: Drafting with Ethical
Considerations in Mind
On the job, ethical dilemmas do not always present
themselves as clear-cut choices. To help avoid ethical
problems in your writing, ask the following questions as you
plan and review your draft:
 Is the communication honest and truthful?
 Am I ethically consistent in my communications?
 Am I acting in the best interest of my employer? the
public? myself?
 What would happen if everybody acted or communicated
in this way?

10. Writer’s Checklist: Drafting with Ethical
Considerations in Mind (continued)
 Does the action or communication violate anyone’s
rights?
 Am I willing to take responsibility for the communication,
publicly and privately?
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