Writing Basics: Who are your readers?

When you sit down to think about writing anything, a very important step in the pre-writing stage is to think about who you are writing for. If you are journaling or writing in a diary, your audience is you. You will be the only person reading your journal, or maybe your teacher, so you need to worry too much about your readers. For all other types of writing, you need to think about your reader(s)and ask yourself some questions such as:

Who, besides my writing teacher, are my readers?
How much do my readers know about my topic?
What will grab my readers' attention?
What don't they know about my topic? How can I teach them something new?
What do my readers expect from my writing? Do they want to learn something new about the subject, be entertained, find out my opinion(s) about the subject?
What is the educational level of my readers?
Do the readers have any biases or strong opinions about the subject that I should take into account in what I write?

If you take the time to really think through these questions, and have answers for them, you will have a clearer idea of what your readers expect from your writing and be able to organize and shape your writing to be of more interest to them. After all, if you are going to take the time to write something, you want your readers to be satisfied after reading it.