Example Academic Audience Analysis

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Psychology 100

Your paper should be about 6 pages.

The My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1969 was a particularly egregious case of overobedience to military authority in wartime. Show the connection between this event and Milgram's experiments. [Milgram used his authority as a researcher to convince subjects to administer what they thought were painful, even life-threatening, shocks to uncooperative people.] Note that Milgram himself treated the My Lai massacre in the epilogue to his Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974). (Behrens and Rosen, 384-5).

1. Step One: Look carefully at the assignment sheet. Does it tell you anything about your teacher’s expectations?
2. Step Two: Do you have any models of papers like this written for this prof in the past?
3. Step Three: Ask questions. What more can you learn about the professor’s expectations as a reader by asking directly?
4. Step Four: Ask yourself what you know about the professor and about the discipline.