Adapting to Your Audience

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Consider the following information about the expectations of your audience:

• Will the audience expect outside sources to be cited? What types of sources? Dated or current sources? Primary or secondary sources? Sources from academic journals or popular magazines? Should Internet sources be cited?
• Will the audience expect personal experience to be used? In the introduction? As evidence in the body of the text?
• Will the audience expect the text to be written in the first-person ("I") or in the third-person?
• Will the audience understand technical terms? Will they expect long explanations or definitions of key terms? Will they expect you to use the jargon of the field?
• Will the audience expect particular formats? Will they expect an essay, an article, a laboratory report? Will the text have a table of contents, a reference list, a title page, headings and subheadings, and extensive graphics or tables?