Chapter 4 Summary

By Tom Wilmes and Erin Collopy

Identifying Purposes

There are two purposes professionals have when preparing a technical document:

• Concisely and accurately convey verifiable information
• Persuade audiences to attend to the information.

Identifying Audiences

You must identify your audience’s needs and specific issues before you analyze it, this is the intended audience.

There are four types of audiences:

Initial Audience: the person to whom you submit a document but not necessarily the decision maker.

Primary Audience: the person for whom your document is intended and the one who will use the information.

Secondary Audience: receive and read the document. They have the most interest because they are affected by the information in it.

External Audience: people outside the immediate organization but are affected by the information or decisions based on it.

Individual Readers may fit into more than one category. For example; a company VP is an expert in business but a student in an Aviation course.

Analyzing Audiences

Strategies for analyzing audiences:

• Context in which a document is interpreted
• Purpose and motivation of the audiences
• Prior knowledge of the audiences including, education and professional experiences
• Reading level
• Organizational role of the audiences

Talking with people in the areas of Design and Development, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service can help you understand what to put into the document.

Context

It is vital to consider the physical and political context and working conditions in which the audience will interpret and use documents, presentations, and visuals. A repair manual used by technicians needs to have a sturdy cover and pages that lie flat as well as visuals and headings that can be easily scanned. A busy executive reading that same manual needs to have it formatted so it has clear , abstract headings, brief explanations and justifications, and conclusions and recommendations.

Purpose and Motivation

Knowing the audience’s purpose and motivation helps you adjust receptivity and decrease resistance.

Receptive audiences: You can present recommendations initially and then support them in subsequent sections

Resistant Audiences: You can present the problem, discuss the alternatives, and then lead to the most appropriate and feasible solution, hoping audiences are persuaded by your interpretation.

Prior Knowledge
If you can estimate audiences prior knowledge, you will be able to determine the appropriate vocabulary and content. Both education and workplace experience influence prior knowledge. The level, type, and duration of a persons education strongly influence prior knowledge, affecting a persons comprehension of concepts and their application.

Vocational-technical Training focuses on providing a practical or applied knowledge.
Professional or academic training focuses on providing a theoretical understanding as well as a practical experience

Reading level
Writing for an audience’s level is important; if audiences cannot understand and act on the written information, it is useless. Knowing an audience’s reading ability helps you adjust content and approach. Writers should not automatically assume, however that the smarter the audiences, the more difficult the material should be. A very intelligent person may not have a high reading level; another person may be able to read complex material in one specialized area, but not in another.

Factors that affect the ease or difficulty of a text:

• Content: Is the content concrete? Supported with explanations? Need prior knowledge?
• Context: Does it explain the context? Is it familiar to the audiences?
• Purpose: Purpose clearly stated? Will the audience agree with the purpose?
• Audience: Does the document target the right audience and reading level?
• Organization: Is it logically organized? Is the information coherent?
• Visuals: Are visuals mixed in? Are they appropriate and appealing?
• Design: Is it appropriately chunked and labeled? Style and format appropriate?
• Usability: Can the audience use the information?
• Language conventions: Does it conform to grammatical and mechanical conventions?

Two types of organization:

• Hierarchical organization: people work best when directed, bosses at top, managers in middle, workers at bottom.
• Nonhierarchical organization: everyone contributes equally to the productivity of the organization.

Adjusting to Audiences:

• Address audiences with different levels of expertise by adjusting the complexity of the material.
• Address audiences with different organizational roles by shifting focus of the discussion and choice of details.
• Address audiences by designing web sites that enable audiences to construct unique sequences of information to meet their own needs and interests.

When choosing which audience to write for you need to identify and write for the primary audience and identify and consider the secondary audiences. Use design elements to make information accessible in both paper and electronic messages.