Analyzing the concepts of audience and genre at the outset of your research project will help you write an effective document. Ask yourself two key questions right at the start:

• Who will be reading this document? Is it your instructor, the general public, your school community, a group of people interested in or affected by your topic, or some other particular group of readers?

• What type or genre of document am I writing? The kinds of sources and reasoning you use will differ based on the genre you are working with. Every genre, from a book review to an academic article to a persuasive editorial, has its own conventions, and your document will be more effective if it adheres to those conventions.