Writing for Multiple Audiences: An Examination of Audience Concerns in a Hospitality Consulting Firm

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a thirty-month case study of how one business writer made decisions concerning audience. The primary objective of thisstudy was to determine if audience theory adequately describes the writing thattakes place in non-academic settings. Findings suggest that audience theory does not adequately describe thecognitive and social decisions that writers make in real-world professionalcontexts. Findings suggest that assumptions about the needs of the primaryreader being most important and the needs of the external client who is payingfor the report being more important than the needs of the internal audience donot necessarily approximate what takes place when professionals write. Professionals who write do not necessarily view the needs of the primaryreader as most important. Intrinsic internal factors such as a writer's sense ofhis/her own and the firm's credibility, financial rewards, and promotions mayaffect decisions concerning audience more than the external client's specificneed for the report.

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