Chapter 3 Response

This chapter demonstrates the importance of the way in which one communicates to readers in their writing. Readers may differ in their organizational roles, levels of superiority, or cultural backgrounds, and it's up to the writer to identify exactly who those readers are. It's interesting to see just how many people may come across something that you write at work, when, in many cases, the people you intend your writing for don't always include all of your readers.

While reading this chapter, it seemed near impossible to predict every potential reader, and even harder to address each of their needs or concerns. There were so many different variables associated with each possible reader. As mentioned in the chapter, one really has to be an expert in order to understand fully those who will come in contact with their proposals, and how they will respond to them.

I think that overall this chapter does a good job of showing all the different kinds of readers, and emphasizing the importance of knowing them and focusing on how each of them will read your message. With this in mind, I like how it's not expected for a writer to be able to meet every single reader's needs, but rather to keep the "stakeholders" of your proposal in mind throughout your writing process. I think page 84 says it best when it mentions that audiences can be complex, and that sometimes a writer may have to focus only on the needs of the most influential members of that audience. And even if that is the case, the writer can only be effective by first identifying each member or group in the audience.