Identifying your audience and purpose

In a nutshell

When writing, it is important to think about who is going to read your writing, so it is important to identify who the audience is. You also need to think about the purpose of your writing.

Identifying the audience

The audience is who you are writing for or the intended readers. An audience can be:

An age group - teenager, adult, children
People with certain hobbies or interests - teachers, gamers, football fans
People from a specific area - villages, city, country

When writing, it is important to think about who you want to read your writing. This can be pretty simple; for example if you want to write a review for a new game, your audience will be gamers and/or children. This means that the language you use has to be suited for them. Other times, it might be more difficult. For example, a company might want to hire someone for a new job, so they will need to target people who are looking for jobs in that field such as professionals or students.

What is purpose?

The purpose of a text is why it was written and what the author wants to achieve. Texts can be produced to:

Purpose	examples
Argue and persuade	Debates or essays
Entertainment	Novels, gossip blogs and short stories
Inform and explain	Instruction manuals and newspapers

A piece of writing can have more than one purpose.

Example

A debate can argue and persuade as well as inform and entertain the audience. Identifying the purpose of your writing and finding the audience will help you to structure your text.