Purpose and audience

In each pair, click on the passage that is more effective, given the writer’s purpose and audience.

Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. After you have finished every question, your answers will be submitted to your instructor’s gradebook. You may review your answers by returning to the exercise at any time. (An exercise reports to the gradebook only if your instructor has assigned it.)

For help with this exercise, see Assessing the writing situation.

Question 1 of 10

Question 1. Which passage would be more effective in a campus newspaper article criticizing the food in the cafeteria’s vending machines?
Purpose and audience (1 of 10)

Question 2 of 10

Question 2. If you were writing an instruction booklet for machinists, which of these sentences would you choose?
Purpose and audience (2 of 10)

Question 3 of 10

Question 3. Which of these requests (from a theater’s playbill) is more effective?
Purpose and audience (3 of 10)

Question 4 of 10

Question 4. Which course description from a student newspaper has more audience appeal? The writer’s purpose is to encourage students to sign up for a course in Asian literature.
Purpose and audience (4 of 10)

Question 5 of 10

Question 5. In a business letter promoting the writer’s company to an audience aware of the company’s former problems, which of these sentences is likely to be more effective?
Purpose and audience (5 of 10)

Question 6 of 10

Question 6. In a brochure to be handed out in a medical office, which passage would be more likely to convince patients to take action?
Purpose and audience (6 of 10)

Question 7 of 10

Question 7. In a newspaper report on an area’s environmental problems, which sentence would better emphasize the reporter’s discovery that Megalocorp was responsible for polluting the river?
Purpose and audience (7 of 10)

Question 8 of 10

Question 8. In an essay describing the US presidential election of 2000, which sentence would be more dramatic?
Purpose and audience (8 of 10)

Question 9 of 10

Question 9. If you were organizing an event at a retirement community, which of these notices would you pin to the bulletin board?
Purpose and audience (9 of 10)

Question 10 of 10

Question 10. Here are two e-mails that a student drafted to send to a professor to request an extension on a paper’s due date. Which one shows more consideration for the audience?
Purpose and audience (10 of 10)