Email messages address one or more specific readers. Even on listservs, messages identify specific individuals by name when responding to previous messages. In synchronous and asynchronous chat, messages may similarly address individuals by name (or alias). In both listserv and conference environments, even messages addressed to all readers are composed with some sense of group identity, whether that group is an undergraduate class or a professional community such as the subscribers to W-Center.

Much traditional classroom writing, in contrast, assumes an artificial audience designated by assignment requirements or is addressed to the instructor, whose expectations as a reader are often imperfectly understood.

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