Audience

For the research paper I think the audience would be an academic one, I'm assuming the readers would be classmates or instructors. Because I'll be writing to people with a good base understanding of many topics I'll be able to start with a basic overview of the topic and then go into more detail and not have to worry about the audience getting "lost" like they would if I were writing to young children or something. I think a good visual element to use would be a graph or chart because they convey a lot of information in a more organized way than simply listing tons of numbers or data and allow the writing to flow better without the interruption of such technical information.