The open letter genre allows a writer to address one audience directly while also persuading another, implicit audience. Open letters maintain the fiction of addressing an explicit audience but make a broader argument to the implicit audience. They must clarify their argument for the implicit audience, convincing them of something through establishing facts, redefining terms, judging ideas, or proposing solutions. Effective open letters require identifying both audiences, framing the argument, and using a tone that best accomplishes the writer's purpose.

1. WRITING

2. The open letter genre is a
literary device that allows the
writer (and the readers) to
focus on one audience, while
covertly persuading another
(the “real” audience).
With serious or volatile topics, this can have the rhetorical effect of
taking the heat off readers: those in the “real” audience can
pretend that they’re not the ones the letter writer is trying to
address.

3. Thus, reading an open letter is like listening in to a conversation –
you learn things, but since it (ostensibly) doesn’t directly affect
you, you’re less likely to feel defensive or argumentative.

4. • Implicit audience (the group of people
you’re actually trying to persuade).
Two levels of audience in open letters:
• Explicit audience (the
person/group/thing/event/phenome
non/concept to whom the letter is
actually addressed.

5. Often, open letters use traditional genre
conventions for letter writing to indicate the
explicit audience (they also sometimes do this
through the title: “An Open Letter to X.”)
Dear X,

6. EXAMPLE
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is
addressed to “My Fellow Clergymen”; however, several
things in the letter suggest that his real (implicit)
audience is white moderates. explicit audience
implicit audience

7. Because of the complicated audience, open letters have
a slightly more complicated persuasive situation. They
must maintain the fiction of writing to their explicit
audience, while also making a broader argument to their
implicit audience.

8. Clarifying Your Argument for the Open Letter
What exactly are you trying to do here in terms of your implicit
(real) audience? What point do you want to make to them? What
do you want them to know, feel, or do as a result of reading your
letter?
•Convince them that a problem exists? (fact)
•Convince them that the way they’ve been thinking about
something is faulty or flawed, or that they’ve misunderstood
something? (definition)
•Convince them that something is good or bad, or better or
worse than something else (when they thought otherwise)?
(evaluation)
•Convince them that they need to DO something? (proposal)

9. Invention Work for Open Letters
1. Decide on your audiences: your implicit audience and your explicit audience. What can you say directly to the one
that you want the other to overhear?
2. Focus on what, specifically, you'll use as the basis for your response (the prompt will be given you somehow by your
explicit audience).
3. Identify your purpose: what exactly do you want your (implicit) audience to know, feel, or do as a result of your
letter?
4. Frame your argument: which of the following best describes what you want to accomplish in the open letter?
•Are you disputing/establishing a fact?
•Are you redefining a term, concept, or event?
•Are you establishing or clarifying a cause or effect?
•Are you judging something as good or bad?
•Are you proposing a solution to a problem, an action that the audience should take, or...?
5. Provide appropriate reasons and support for your argument.
6. Consider the ethos and tone that would best accomplish what you want. Is it too snarky? Too ingratiating? Too
knowing?