One of the most important tasks to approach in writing is modifying tone and word choice to achieve a desired effect. Outcome 1 focuses on the awareness of different writing strategies given a targeted context or audience, with these strategies working to persuade your audience of your argument. Short Assignment 2 provided the clearest example of my awareness of both writing contexts and audiences, making the piece more persuasive and understandable to the target audience.

            My letters between Booker and Wolf provided for a unique experience for writing in different situations, awareness of audience, and use of tone/style to successfully persuade a specific audience. My audience of each letter was clearly either Booker or Wolf, and in each letter I had to embody each author’s style while simultaneously modifying my tone to better persuade the other writer of their chosen argument. Putting each author’s style into the letters is particularly difficult when I have to consciously force my own tone out of the letter, but I am certain I ended up successfully embodying each author’s style. For example, I incorporated each author’s diction by using keywords like “challenge,” “multiplicity,” or “Culture Industry.” I also embodied the writers’ tones by making Booker pessimistic and obsessed with the Culture Industry while Wolf was optimistic and his argument was broken down into a few distinct sections (accompanied by subtitles). Each writer’s argument was structured for an academic audience, and each had a central argument supported with evidence and analysis. These strategies may not be typical in a letter, but each author structured their letter in this way in order to persuade the other of his argument. If Wolf had responded in a casual letter, his argument would not be nearly as effective and Booker would likely not even respond to him.

            As you could hopefully tell from the immense paragraph directly above, awareness of audience was critical to Short Assignment 2. I had to structure my writing in order to fit the situation of a letter between two experts, and had to modify each letter to better support its audience (while still holding true to the original style of each author). This example of my writing demonstrates that I can write under multiple contexts, as each letter was very distinct.

            One of the subtleties of Outcome 1 is that I am able to assess the effects of my writing choices – which if it isn’t apparent enough already, I’ll cite some examples from my writer’s memo from the first draft of Short Assignment 2. Like in my final draft, “I chose to make Booker extremely pessimistic, in direct opposition of Wolf’s optimism involving White Chicks.” Even from the outset of this assignment, I knew that in order to create an effective representation of each author, each letter would have to be distinct in tone and would in turn separate the two authors. By crafting each letter to be unique, I was able to take on the persona of each author and form a letter that would embody a unique argument. My method of designing two unique letters, focusing on tone and diction, certainly allowed for each letter to take on its own argument and created an interesting fictional argument between Booker and Wolf.

            My awareness of each author, their respective audience, and the tools I used to differentiate between each letter served to create a unique dialogue between Booker and Wolf. By being aware of my audience, I can shape my future writings to be persuasive and clear to my targeted audience. Only by being conscious of your intended audience can you craft an argument that will be as persuasive and believable as possible.