Subjectivity, Experience and Knowledge - Essay Example

2 January Assignment The audience plays a very important role with respect to the essay written by an over a particular topic. The entire point of writing an essay is for the audience to read it and understand it from their perspective; therefore, it is imperative that the writer is subjecting the contents of the essay with reference to the potential audience who is going to read it. The audience is the most important aspect with regard to any essay written by an author. It is crucial to understand the needs of the audience when one is writing an essay as the audience is the one who decides whether the essay has been able to cover the issue it wanted to or not. Every essay has a point to make, and the point is communicated to the potential audience and strives to instil some emotions or thought process into the people who are reading the article; therefore, the writer should bear in mind the people who read the essay so that he can chart out the point in an effective manner. The technique to writing an effective essay is to become one’s own audience at the time of writing the essay. Once the writer starts to write the essay, he should keep reviewing it so that he can know when he is making a mistake or how he should go about writing the essay so that the message is sent across easily and efficiently. Furthermore, he or she must be able to keep checking each and every paragraph of the essay and put himself or herself in another person’s shoes and comprehend from that point of view. If he or she is able to sense clarity within the essay, then the essay should go on; if not, then certain changes need to be made from the point of view of the targeted audience so that they will be able to understand the essay better. Every time that an author sets about to write a piece of persuasive text, the main thing to be kept in mind is who should be persuaded. Every essay is directed towards a particular group of people and aimed towards providing information to a particular aspect of society. If the author of the essay is able to persuade the minds of the targeted audience, then the main objective of the essay has been met. If not, then changes need to be made within the text in order to help the people understand what the essay is actually trying to say. For example, an essay on race cars would be directed at a particular group of people who are fanatics or contain a passion about the dynamics of racing and race cars; other people who have no idea about the same phenomenon will not be able to understand the point of the essay, no matter how hard they try, and will find it boring to read because of lack of understanding. Previously, two essays on personal reflection were written by me that were mainly aimed at a particular audience trying to understand the intricacies of writing essays and understanding grammar related to the same. The essay comprised comprehending personal reflection, prewriting strategies, as well as free-writing and focused writing etc, and could not have been understood by a lay man with no interest in writing essays or reading them. The second essay was directed towards an audience that would understand the need of having a child and how I felt when my first daughter was born. Not all types of audiences will be able to understand those emotions; thus, there was a specific type of people that could comprehend what I was trying to say within that essay. Simply speaking, it is important for any author to keep an audience in mind while writing an essay because the audience is the main object towards which the essay is to be delivered to. Every author wants his or her essays to be read by someone, appreciated, as well as criticised, and only a specific audience can do that for the author. The audience needs to be persuaded and made understood that the ideas within the essay written by the author are what he is trying to say and convey to other people with a view for them to inculcate the same within their lives. Furthermore, receiving a response from the audience helps the author to better his or her work because inputs from the source that is listening to the essay only help to make it better. If the author does not know what the audience wants, he will not be able to give it to them. Thus, with the help of the essay a need must be created for the author to understand the wants of the audience, and the essay in persuasion must be written with a view of understanding the same. 2. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which helps a person to understand the nature and the scope of knowledge. It helps a person analyse what knowledge is, how it is acquired by human beings, as well as how a person knows what he knows because of the external environment he lives in. This is a very interesting aspect of comprehending what we know because of the experiences that we have had during the course of our lifetime and the way they may be applied in reality. Every piece of writing is directed from a specific source; this means that when a person writes something, he writes from what he knows, or whatever knowledge that he has gained over time about that specific matter. It is absurd to see someone writing something about something that he barely has any idea about. Thus, every time a person sits down to write an essay, he has a certain amount of knowledge regarding that aspect already. In case he feels that he wants to write about something but does not have enough information, he indulges in researching about the particular topic and then writing about it. The writer must also aim at understanding a specific audience towards which the paper and his knowledge are to be directed. In order to develop and demonstrate the knowledge used within the essays, as a writer, I had to do some in-depth research on the topics at hand. For example, for the essay about my daughter and her birth, I had to speak to a few people and understand their emotions towards the entire situation. A number of parents told me that they were overjoyed to hear about the birth of their child, and that gave me the motivation to write about my experience. I also had to research about the negative vibes and feelings that I was having and to understand whether or not they were normal, in order to have them portrayed in a positive manner within the purview of my essay. Demonstrating knowledge and thoughts within an essay is a tough job because it is not easy to help people understand the knowledge within oneself in the same manner that the author is feeling it. Thus, that needs to be done with intelligence and smartness because the author needs to create an understanding within the mind of the reader with the help of this knowledge. Knowledge may arise from anywhere; that is the mantra used by me while writing my essays. I made use of a few internet resources, as well as books and journals, in order to understand the topic of discussion that I had to write about. The knowledge that I had in mind had to be channelled by me in a proper manner, in order to get it on paper and have it read out effectively by the targeted audience. Furthermore, it became imperative for me to double-check with my own thoughts and experiences with those of other people in order to comprehend their emotions and feelings and then portray my words on paper. Knowledge is infinite in nature; however, in each person’s mind, it is contained in a limited amount, thus, it becomes vital for a writer to be able to give that knowledge a proper way to display itself through writing. I might have a few facts and situations that I had encountered during the course of my life time which helped me gain knowledge about something and then write about it; however, other people might not have been through the same situations, and in order to help them understand and acquire my knowledge, it became important for me to portray those thoughts in a proper manner and help people understand what it is that I want to talk about. Works Cited "Subjectivity, Experience and Knowledge: An Epistemology From/for Rainbow Coalition Politics - Harding - 2008 - Development and Change." Wiley Online Library. Web. 04 Jan. 2012. Read More