A study analyzed argumentative essays written to both friendly and hostile audiences by 40 randomly selected college undergraduate students and 12 randomly selected college-bound high school seniors. After holistic rating, papers were analyzed for degree and kind of audience activity and were also independently evaluated for writers' levels of intellectual performance on the Perry Scheme. Results showed level of intellectual development to be a more significant predictor of holistic paper scores than demographic variables. Significant relationships were found between writers' audience activity, holistic paper scores, and Perry Scheme score. Six variables--friendly- and hostile-audience strategy and response (a dialectical measure), Perry Scheme score, and grade-level--predicted significantly for paper scores. After backwards selection, friendly-audience strategy and Perry Scheme score predicted most significantly for the friendly-audience paper and hostile-audience response, Perry Scheme score, and grade level for the hostile-audience paper. The hostile-audience paper evoked the most dialectical activity. (Three tables of data and a figure are included, and 50 references are attached.) (Author/JK)