Writing for a specific magazine, the writer should take into consideration many important details that will make it possible to create the article interesting for the readers. In other words, the writer should direct his writing on a particular audience. For example, writing for a professional magazine, the writer will choose topics relevant to the subject and use specific terms.
In fact, there are many means used to attract and, what is more important, hold the reader’s attention. These means are the author’s language choice, tone of the voice, specific descriptions, example and details. All these means should be focused on the interests and knowledge of the target audience. Stark and Pitt are the writers who create articles for magazines with different audience.
Consequently, their articles cover the topics relevant to the target audiences and use voice and terminology that are understandable for the readers. However, how would their writings change if they switch audiences with each other? Thus, in order to attract and keep the attention of their new audience, the writers would have change the manner of representation of the material, terminology and voice of their articles.
As it has already been mentioned, the author should focus his writing on the knowledge and interests of the target audience. Edward Jay Friedlander and John Lee in their book Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines: The Pursuit of Excellence say that, “writers, if they are to be successful, must learn not only to write in different voices, but also deliver the topics in a manner expected by readers” (76).
In other words, the writer should define a target audience. Each magazine has a specific target audience. It can be a professional magazine, scientific, a magazine for teenagers, housekeepers or car drivers, etc. In each case, the writer should take into account.
Thus, if the authors switch the audience, the first thing they should do is to correct the titles of their articles. According to the settled condition, the authors should make the topics of their articles interesting for audience of a different journal. Pitt would have to change the manner of presentation of the material, as a majority of the target audience of the Outside magazine would not understand the terminology applied to digital technologies.
His article is aimed at teaching people work with Photoshop and some of its new versions. Thus, it presupposes that readers can use the program and knows the terminology, “we used Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 for our example, but most photo imagine has the same or similar tools” (Pitt n. pag.). The readers of the Outside Magazine, who might be interested in the digital edit of the photography by themselves, hardly know these tools.
Thus, the author should introduce explanations for the terms and usage of the tools. Moreover, as the audience much of the context of the writing, the author might change the subject matter, for example, instead of editing human photo, he could suggest editing of the nature or animals pictures. Finally, he uses the first first-person voice, and then switches to the second-person voice to teach his readers.
In case with the audience of the Outside Magazine, he must change the way of addressing to the audience. It should be less straightforward, as the majority of articles in the Outside Magazine are the stories that happen to people and look like literature stories. Thus, Pitt must change the tone of instruction to less straightforward, more get-to-know one and switch to the second or third voice.
If Peter Stark writes for the PC Photo Magazine, he also must change many things in his article. It is very important to remember that:
“The words in the text should reflect an author’s knowledge of the topic with the intent of informing the reader. Most authors not only want the information to be accessible, but also want to achieve their purpose by allowing the reader to “enter” into the text comfortably. Authors do this by making the word choice and language interesting, compelling, and appropriate to the audience’s knowledge level, age, and experience” (Medina 41).
For him, it would be a bit difficult to attract the attention of people who are interested in the digital technologies, to the topic of his article “As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow – First Chill, then Stupor, then the Letting Go”. Thus, the first thing that can be done is changing the title into more appropriate.
For example, “What Should One Do if…”. The form of the writing should be changed as well. It should contain some instructions or helpful advice. The article should be written in second voice and include some conclusion, for example, some addition to the story after the experience. In addition, the terminology, such as “hypothermia” should be changed to more common words.
Thus, we can come to a conclusion that the target audience of the magazine article, as well as other writings has a great meaning, and the writing interesting for one reader can be absolutely indifferent to other reader. If Pitt and Stark change the target audience of their articles, they will have to change many issues, such as title, examples, terminology, idea, voice, manner of representation of the material.
Works Cited
Friedlander, Edward Jay, and John Lee. Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines: The Pursuit of Excellence. Harper Collins College Publishers, 1996.
Medina, Conni. Successful Strategies for Reading in the Content Areas. Huntington Beach: Shell Education, 2007.
Pitts, Wes. “Photo Exorcism”. Motives for Writing 5th Ed. Ed. Robert Keith Miller. Online Learning Center. Web.
Stark, Peter, “As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow – First Chill, then Stupor, then the Letting Go”. Motives for Writing 6th Ed. Ed. Robert Keith Miller. Online Learning Center. Web.