I thought this article on the writing process was very helpful.
I did not understand how to really identify an audience for a research paper?
Along with that I wonder if identifying and audience would really change your paper, as they say it would?
I feel that narrowing your subject would really limit your paper and what you discuss which I thought was not a good thing?
These are all really good questions. I think for now I will take on the question of why we consider audience. I guess I like to think about this as a matter of code-switching, or adapting your language and style to suit the people you expect to read/listen to what you write/say. To use a personal example, the way I talk to you guys in the classroom is not the same way I talk in the classes I am taking, and the way I talk in there is nowhere close to how I talk to my parents and friends. This can also be a matter of how you approach an issue. To use an example we encountered in class, why does Peter Singer take so f-ing long to get to the point of his article? Well, the answer is that he knows and anticipates how people will receive what he has to say. So he does a bait-and-switch.
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