Teaching students to understand the importance of audience analysis can be challenging. In fact, many public-speaking texts suggest methods for engaging audience analysis that is not always practical or possible (e.g., polling audiences before you speak to them). One practical way of understanding audience analysis is to see it at work in the text…

This article describes a flipped classroom activity that requires students to integrate research and audience analysis. The activity uses Twitter as a data source. In the activity, students identify a sample, collect customer tweets, and analyze the language of the tweets in an effort to construct knowledge about an audience's values, needs, and…

This article reports on a three-year investigation into how and to what extent ePortfolios sponsor teacher and student learning about audience in first-year writing classes at a mid-sized research university. Through interviews with students and instructors and detailed analysis of students' ePortfolios, we found that, more often than not, the…

In technical writing classes, audience is one of the most important concepts. Technical writing is typically written to a specific audience for a specific purpose. In addition, as audiences change, so must the way a document is written. An audience's lack of knowledge in a technical area, for example, would require more background information or…

Noting that daytime television serials have been used to teach a variety of subjects, including writing and language skills, this paper reviews literature on the nature of soap operas so that instructors can use them more effectively. Following an introduction citing studies on the educational uses of soap operas, the paper explores the following…

A study examined the research base for public speaking instruction. Persuasive speaking, informative speaking, and audience analysis and adaptation in five introductory public speaking textbooks were examined. Four of the texts were selected because they have survived in the marketplace through multiple editions; the fifth book was selected…

Describes the interpretive elements of literary messages, participants, and interaction settings from a social contexts orientation. Presents a framework, rationale, and an implementation strategy for social contexts component in interpretation education. Claims that such programs help participants, through the sensitive communication of…