1. Write down your responses to the following questions.

1. What audience will I choose?

1. To what writing communities do I now belong within this writing context? With what specific audiences in these communities could I discuss my subject?
2. Which of these audiences do I choose? Who would be the most interested? Who would benefit from the questions I am raising and any answers I learn?
3. What medium will be appropriate and feasible to reach my audience? Letter? Published essay? Report? What do my readers as members of a writing community expect for the kind of discourse and medium I have chosen?

1. What does this audience know and value?

1. What kind of background and experience does my audience have? How does this relate to my subject? What does my audience know about my subject and the dissonances I experience?
2. What does my audience value most? How do these values relate to my subject? How strongly does my audience hold them?

1. What reader role will I call forth for my audience?

1. What is suggested by the analysis I have just completed? If I am writing for a publication, what role does the publication already have for its readers?
2. What knowledge and experience characterize that role?
3. What are the values connected with that role?
4. What does my readers' role help me to learn about my question?
5. What does my role imply for my writing of the paper?

1. What voice will I write in?

1. How are we related within the writing community?
2. Am I a peer? An expert? A satirist? A subordinate? A critic? A student?

II. Discuss your audience, role, and voice with your writing group.