Writing For Your Target Audience While Staying True to Your Style

Why some articles require a different approach than others.

No subject on the Medium platform has been covered more than the never-ending advice on how to write. And for good reason. Writing is arguably the number one reason to become a member of the Medium community.

Of course, reading all the interesting articles here has made it quite hard to focus on writing my own, since I now enjoy spending hours scrolling the feed and seeing what’s new. Medium has become my newest source of entertainment and information. Especially when trying to find articles that don’t end up bringing everything back to the topic of politics or the dastardly coronavirus.

The best part about Medium is the lack of advertisement present. I was ecstatic to come across an alternative source of quality articles provided without annoying ads bombarding me, unlike most of the other media platforms.

And for anyone looking to become a more prolific writer, Medium provides a constant influx of articles providing all sorts of advice on how to make your articles informative while at the same time entertaining. There is, however, one idea I see being promoted on a regular basis that I do not think is conducive to the writer or their audience.

As an avid reader, one theme of advice I have gleaned from numerous articles that I absolutely do not agree with is to simplify your choice of wording to cater to the reading level of a high-schooler.

I completely understand why some would maintain this position in an argument. I realize that a vast quantity of contributing members are not completely fluent in English and that it is most likely not their first language. I also know that in the current culture of sending short texts riddled with acronyms and abbreviations that reading comprehension has taken a drastic dive among the younger generations.

However, simplifying vernacular and therefore content to accommodate a lower level of comprehension does not help the reader to ever improve. Instead, it encourages the reader to stay in a comfortable setting never being forced to struggle to keep up with societal averages.

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