SQR #6

Andrew Schlieper, Ryan Pena
English 1320/1301.161
Trang Phan
SQR #6
S: The article talks about when to and not to block out audiences in writing. Blocking out an audience is equivalent to closing one’s eyes when speaking to a group. The reasons why people try to block out their audience, when writing, is to help themselves write without hindrance. When a person is starting a writing assignment, they either; think about the audience and write towards them in the beginning, or they just start writing a general article and later on focus it in the direction of the audience. The reasons why some people can think about the audience is that they use them to drive the points of the essay. This is bad due to the fact that over use of the reader-based prose sometimes leads to a loss of the writes point. But not thinking of the reader can also lead to an essay that is incoherent to the reader. What a writer needs to do is balance between writer and reader to help themselves and the reader to understand the point of the article.
Q: What is your definition of a hindering audience? Is your definition similar or different than the texts? What does the article say about how to deal with these types of audiences? What do you do to help yourself get around obstacles in writing?
R: A hindering audience is one that will stop the writer’s thought flow. Rather than allowing the author to think and write without stopping, it mentally blocks or slows down the writer’s train-of-thought, like a cliff or a turn. This is similar to how a hindering audience is described in the section titled “A Limited Claim” (pg. 51) in paragraph 3. “Other audiences, however, are powerfully inhibiting…find just what we need to write.” The article goes on to say that when we have to write to these audiences we should block them out. When I am faced with writing a difficult essay, I tend to put my thoughts down first then expand on them then try to put them into a style that addresses the audience it is directed towards.