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Determine the writer’s purpose and audience.

Although crafting a profile usually helps writers come to understand the people, places, and activities they are studying, most write profiles to impart their own special understanding or insight. When reading the profiles that follow, ask yourself questions like these about the writer’s purpose and audience:

What seems to be the writer’s main purpose—for example, to inform readers about some aspect of everyday life (the places and activities around us that we rarely get to know intimately); to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at an intriguing or unusual activity; to surprise readers by presenting unusual subjects or familiar ones in new ways; to offer a new way to look at and think about the cultural significance of the subject; or to bridge the distance between outsiders’ preconceptions and the lived experience of people as they try to communicate, construct their identities, and define their values?
What does the author assume about the audience—for example, that audience members know nothing or very little about the subject; that they will be interested and possibly amused by a particular aspect of the subject; or that they will be intrigued by the perspective the writer takes or fascinated by certain quotes or descriptive details?