Throughout my schooling years my writing has developed and evolved. In high school I would write very generally and not targeted at anyone. My goal would be to get my words on the page, and I thought that the rest would take care of itself. After continuing to read and write I have learned that always targeting an audience is the most effective way to get your point across. Using strategies to identify a target audience has helped me a lot. Some of the strategies I have used are looking into my topic and finding who would find it most relevant. Once I have determined a group of relevance, I can start my writing and reach them much more effectively. 

I have engaged with many different genres throughout this past year. Some of these genres include a bibliography, a lab report, a personal reflection, and a critical film review. Exploring these different genres has opened my mind to different styles of wiring. I can see how you can use writing strategies from other genres to improve your writing, while keeping the target audience the same throughout. I have seen the value in exploring genres and I believe seeing a little bit of every style of writing is very important for continuous improvement in one writing.

I have worked towards finding strategies to target an audience, and I have found a few things very helpful. If you are writing a persuasive essay then it is very important to target people's emotions as that is naturally a human's most vulnerable spot. You must determine the message you want to send before writing because it will change which emotions you try to activate in your writing. Other styles of writing are easier to find an audience for, but looking at the effect your topic will have over people and targeting those people is a good way to find an audience for your writing. I have practiced these strategies throughout the year with almost every assignment I have completed, because I need to find an audience before completing any writing assignment. 

I recommend using outside sources to help find the purpose for your writing. Outside sources will provide you with extra context that can help you shape your purpose along with your audience.  It is also important to know how to write to your audience, because that directly determines the receptiveness of the writing. There is also a lot of value in practicing writing your topic, such as drafts and making revisions. If you write drafts, your final draft should be much better than the first draft and you’ll have it filled with words you want to use more. 

Brainstorming ideas has helped me significantly this year. Taking the time to sit down and think of ideas that I want to use in my writing has helped me a lot this year. It has allowed my writing to be more creative because I am able to fit more ideas into the piece I am writing. Drafting is also an incredible help, as each draft shapes the final product more and more, until the final draft is ready to reach its target audience. The project proposal we did in this draft highlighted the effectiveness of it well, because taking the time to brainstorm allowed better ideas to get thrown around, until one was decided and acted on.

Using GAP when writing assignments can be very important. This helps you refine your ideas because it is a mold for what your piece is about. Finding your specific audience and purpose can be hard, and GAP is a direct and effective way to help yourself discover it. Writing for your ideal audience is the most important part of your writing because readers must be interested in your writing for it to have my meaning.

Evaluating sources is very important when writing. You must always look for credibility in sources, so you know the information is safe. After you have done a web search to determine if your site is credible, you can go and cite the information you used. If you determine the source is not credible, then you can scrap it and find one with better information that you can use in your writing. Using outside sources for added context has been one of the most beneficial parts of the writing process for me and I suggest everyone looks at other people talking about your writing topic before engaging in it. 

In persuasive writing you always need a defined audience because you need to know which group you are trying to persuade. Determining who you are writing to will influence all the content you include in the writing. Always take a close look into what you can do to find the right target audience because it will determine the impact of your writing. It can be very bad for receptiveness if a target audience is not reached efficiently.

My biggest takeaway from this course is that sometimes people are unique and that everyone thinks differently. I have learned that everyone has a vastly different mindset and those built in mindsets can cause blindness to oneself because it becomes so normal to them. Self-awareness is hard to constantly be full of but seeing other people have closed mind in certain topics and others having open minds and others being completely unaware of flaws has made me realize the world is an open door. Everyone is an emotional outlet where you are able to get in and change behavior and thinking based on your actions. Everyone is limited to one perspective in life and realizing that is a huge step in writing because you can understand the versatility of the audience you are focusing on.

The skills I have learned in this class will have a personal impact on me. I can utilize these skills in future writing assignments to slowly grow and become a better writer. If I keep practicing finding an audience and writing directly about my purpose, then I will continue to improve. Using any of these skills will be helpful in the writing process and it is very worth it to use them. There are strategies to help perfect my writing and I plan to use them to put out better finished products consistently.