Kennedy Abramson

Zack de Piero
Writing 2
4 November 2015
Its All About the Audience
The typical college student has likely seen their fair share of long-distance relationships
crash and burn. Although many long-distance relationships in college do end, we seem to share a
bit of a misconception that they are always doomed. It is helpful to consider multiple different
perspectives on long-distance relationships in college in order to keep from jumping to such
hasty conclusions. One way to consider different perspectives on the topic when reading
scholarly texts is by searching for pieces written by scholars of different disciplines. When
reading multiple articles about the same topic it can be beneficial to analyze the different
conventions and moves that the different authors utilize. Moves and conventions are typically
used in the same way and for the same purpose in writing. The moves that an author makes and
the conventions that they follow impact the intended audience in many ways. Authors are aware
of their intended audience and they write accordingly; moves and conventions are essential in
order for the author to achieve their goals when writing for a specific audience.
The article Idealization and Communication in Long-Distance Premarital Relationships
by Laura Stafford and James R. Reske, scholars in the communication discipline, examines the
difference between how couples in long-distance relationships in college communicate
differently than those in geographically close relationships. This article found that despite the
perception of long-distance relationships as being prone to failure, couples in long distance
relationships were actually significantly more likely to say they planned on marrying their

significant other than couples in geographically close relationships were. Another article,
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?: Long Distance Dating Relationships Among College
Students by David Knox, Marty Zusman, Vivian Daniels, and Angle Brantley exposes the truth
about the level of satisfaction within the relationships of people who have been in long-distance
relationships while in college from the perspective of scholars within the psychology discipline.
They found that the couples who reported being more satisfied with their relationships were
more likely to endure the distance. They also noted that many people in long distance
relationships value moral commitment within the relationship in order to ensure a healthy and
successful long-distance relationship in college.
Upon reading these two articles you can immediately see the similarities surrounding the
way they are structured. Since both pieces belong to the scholarly article genre, we expect them
to look a certain way and the articles dont disappoint. There are quite a few structural
conventions that each article follows but they are somewhat boring so Ill keep it brief. The two
main structural conventions I noticed within both articles were that they both start with a concise
description of the overall purpose of the research and they both include a list of references at the
end.
Scholarly pieces have their place when reading about a certain topic, in this case college
long-distance relationships, but they certainly arent the only place to obtain information. The
Reality of Long-Distance College Relationships, before and after Graduation by Hailey Lee is a
non-scholarly, mainstream article that attempts to show that not all long-distance relationships in
college are the same and that some couples really can make it work. This piece belongs to the
online magazine article genre so it is difficult to find connections between its conventions and
those of the scholarly articles. What we can do, however; is make connections between why the

writers uses certain conventions rather than what conventions they use. In this article, Lee kept
the paragraphs short, often times only one sentence, in order to break up the text to make it more
reader friendly. This convention is likely followed with the intended audience for Lees article,
young college students, in mind. Lee, being a senior at Wellesley College herself, probably
understands that the typical college student is either extremely lazy or extremely busy so they are
more likely to read her article if it doesnt look like a giant, intimidating glob of words. Jonathan
Alexander and Elizabeth Losh said it best in their comic Spaces for Writing when they wrote
that all writing is influenced by what you know about an audiences expectations (Alexander
and Losh 7). So as you can see, although the conventions used within scholarly articles and
mainstream articles arent the same exact thing, they are both followed because of the impact
they will have on the intended audience.
Outside of analyzing the conventions, we can delve further into each piece to see what
moves the writers make. Stafford and Reske, in their scholarly article Idealization and
Communication in Long-Distance Premarital Relationships, use a move in which they start off
phrases that summarize their point and help reach conclusions with the word thus. One example
can be seen when they write: [t]hus, idealized couples should score higher on measures of
satisfaction such as (Stafford and Reske 278). Its likely that the authors use this move
because, although their intended audience is other scholars in the field of communication, their
article can be complex at times so summarizing ideas helps to keep the reader on track and to
keep them from becoming confused.
One move that the authors of Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?: Long Distance
Dating Relationships Among College Students make is bolding the titles of each section of their
article as well as coloring them blue. Having bolded, blue headings for each section of the article

helps to break it up and make it clear for the readers. The intended audience of this piece is likely
other psychology scholars but thats not to say that they would never be bored when reading
research simply because the research is within their own discipline. Breaking the text up makes it
more reader friendly, whether the reader is an accomplished psychology scholar or an
inexperienced freshman in college writing an essay. The effectiveness of this move can be seen
when you put this article side by side with Idealization and Communication in Long-Distance
Premarital Relationships because Stafford and Reske didnt use this move. Stafford and Reske
did bold the headings of each of their sections but they kept them the same color as the rest of the
text. When you compare the two articles, Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?: Long
Distance Dating Relationships Among College Students stands out because the blue really helps
the headings pop. In the mainstream article, Lee uses a move in which she writes about the
stories of two different couples who had dissimilar experiences with long-distance relationships
while in college. By including the two different stories, she shows the reader that her assertion
that not all college long-distance relationships are the same can be backed up by real-world
examples. This move is used to relate to her intended audience, students who may have been in
similar situations or who know someone who has.
Its easy to see, when you break each text down, that the moves the authors make directly
connect to who their intended audience is, just as the conventions did. The scholarly articles are
clearly not meant for someone to just stumble upon while surfing the internet and the magazine
article is clearly not meant for scholars to take seriously when contemplating long-distance
relationships in college. Kerry Dirk in Navigating Genres includes helpful tips about why writers
make the moves and follow the conventions that they do. It is clear that each of the writers were
choosing to [write] in a manner that would result in the outcome [they] desired (Dirk 253). You

could go as far as saying that there really isnt much of a difference between conventions and
moves at all. Conventions and moves are really just things that writers follow/use with their
audience in mind in order to achieve a desired effect.
Although the scholarly articles and the mainstream article both use conventions and
moves similarly, they each have a specific function. Their functions, like their conventions and
moves, connect with their intended audience. The one main thing that the non-academic article
can do that the scholarly articles cant is reach a mass audience of people from a variety of
different backgrounds. The scholarly articles are complex and therefore likely to mainly interest
other scholars who are significantly interested on the topic and how it relates to the discipline of
the authors who wrote it. The non-academic article, however; is easy to read and a bit more
interesting (includes stories and pictures) so it is more likely to appeal to a bunch of people who
are potentially students within many different disciplines. On the other hand, scholarly articles
are able to come to much more informed conclusions about the topic at hand. Readers are more
likely to trust the assertions of authors of scholarly pieces because they have done significant
research and provided significant evidence to back up their claims. So there is a bit of a paradox
here because it appears that non-academic articles are more capable of reaching a mass audience
but scholarly articles are more capable of convincing their audience.
So as it turns out, conventions and moves are used in essentially the same way, some may
even argue that they are the same. Analyzing conventions and moves makes it clear that when
writers know who their audience is, it has a profound impact on their writing. The writers utilize
conventions and moves to achieve specific, desired impacts on their audience. As an informed
member of that audience, you are able to figure out what the authors are trying to achieve with
their writing by looking at the moves they use and the conventions they follow.

Works Cited
Alexander, Jonathan, Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon. "Spaces for Writing." Understanding
Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. By Elizabeth Losh. N.p.: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2013. N.
pag. Print.

Dirk, Kerry. "Navigating Genres." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1. N.p.: Parlor, n.d.
250-62. Print.

Knox, David, Marty E. Zusman, Vivian Daniels, and Angle Brantley. "Absence Makes the Heart
Grow Fonder?: Long Distance Dating Relationships Among College Students." College Student
Journal 36.3 (n.d.): 364. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

Lee, Hailey. "The Reality of Long-Distance College Relationships, before and after Graduation."
Usatoday.com. N.p., 15 Apr. 2014. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

Stafford, Laura, and James R. Reske. Idealization and Communication in Long-distance

Premarital Relationships. Family Relations 39.3 (1990): 274279. Web. 1 Nov. 2015