The overarching purpose of writing is to communicate. As such, the intended audience is a critical consideration for writers. However, elementary school writing instruction commonly neglects the role of the audience. Typically, children are asked to compose a piece of text without a specific audience in mind that is usually evaluated by the teacher. Previous studies have found a relationship between audience specification and higher quality writing among older children. This article presents a study that examined the impact of audience specification on young children's writing. Using a within-subjects design, the study compared writing quality when second-grade students wrote for internal versus external audiences and found that children are more likely to produce higher quality.