AUDIENCE ATTITUDES Attitude’means the expectations that a reader has ‘when he or she reads a document. Any audience will have at least two attitudes involved in the communication situation: (1) feelings about the message and the sender, and (2) expectations of form. You must accommodate your documents to meet both these expectations. Feelings about Message and Sender. In terms […]
AUDIENCE’S ORGANIZATIONAL DISTANCE Organizational distance refers to the relative positions of the reader and the writer in the hierarchy of the institution. In this regard, the audience is located above, at the same level, or below – and either near or far away If the audience consists of people from several positions in the hierarchy, the audience is […]
YOUR AUDIENCE’S KNOWLEDGE LEVEL The term knowledge level means how much your intended audience knows about the subject matter of the document. The level ranges from layperson to expert. In technical writing, a lay audience is intelligent but uninformed about the topic, and an expert audience understands the topic’s basic facts and concepts. You must plan your document to […]
AUDIENCE ROLES In any writing situation; your audience has a role: Like actors in a drama, they player part, using the document as a “script.” They perform actions after receiving the information in your document. Those who take the most active roles are users and decision makers. Users need a document that gives specific instructions for physically carrying out […]
Defining Audiences YOUR AUDIENCE’S KNOWLEDGE LEVEL AUDIENCE ROLES AUDIENCE’S ORGANIZATIONAL DISTANCE AUDIENCE ATTITUDES Every piece of technical writing has an intended audience: the reader or readers of the document. Your audience will affect your decisions, from organization and visual aids to sentence structure and word choice. If the audience consists of consumers who will assemble a tricycle, they […]