Defining my audience for my Public Discourse Paper:

· My intended audience for my paper is any type of university community whether it be faculty, students, or even parents of students. Most importantly, my paper will be targeting Miami University freshman because the new policy (sophomores being required to live on campus) will become effective next year, meaning it will directly affect us. It will be written like some sort of campus newspaper article.

· What I know about my audience is that they are/will be somewhat familiar with the policy. I know that students will be able to relate to the issue in one way or another because they have all lived in dorms before and many of them have lived in off-campus housing as well, so they have the ability to compare and contrast the two living situations. I know that parents will be interested in this as well because of how it will affect them financially.

· Much of audience is pretty familiar with my topic, especially administrators. When providing summary about the issue, it will be useful to those students and parents of students who are not familiar with the issue.

· The audience (especially students) has the ability to affect the problem, because the more students are informed about the issue, the more they will be able to voice their own opinions about it to someone who may listen. Maybe someone will stand up and start some sort of petition.

· As far as my audience’s opinion goes, they probably differ slightly. I think that most freshmen-to-be-sophomores may not necessarily agree that sophomores should life off campus, but I think that most of them would say that they should be given the choice. Parents might think the policy is a good idea seeing as they would still be under supervision of the university. And of course, the faculty believes it to be a good idea because they put it into place. In order to address the issues, I have to explain to them the benefits of living off campus.

· Most of my audience is not familiar with me personally. However, the students know me as a fellow student. The adults of my audience also know me as a student. Because of that student stereotype, my tone will need to be professional if I want to be heard.

· I want my student audience to be angry; angry that their freedom of choice has been taken away. I want my administrative audience to feel guilty for taking this right away from them and perhaps keeping them from learning the importance of independence. I want my parent audience to understand how their kids living off campus will benefit them. In order to do this, I will simply lay down the facts. Yes there are benefits to living on campus but there are also those to off-campus housing. It should be the student’s choice. Period.

· Effective evidence for this stance will be incorporating statistics that favor off-campus housing as well as providing examples that remind the reader how important the freedom of choice is.

· I think logical, ethical, and emotional appeals will be useful in this paper.

· I will overly characterize my audience by forming my arguments in ways that will favor both the wishes students and adults. The bottom line is that choice is something that shouldn’t be compromised. If we can have a say in who will run our country, I think we should have a say in where we choose to live in it.