Audience Analysis and Accommodation

1. Audience Analysis and Accommodation Dr. Anne Watt Rose-Hulman Inst of Tech

2. Introduction • Rhetorical Situations (the rhetorical triangle) • Importance of analyzing who your audience(s) is/are, and then crafting your communication to best meet their needs as well as your goals

3. Communication Situations Writer/Purpose Context Context Genre Audience Topic

4. First, analyzing your audience: • Consider reader types. • Consider reader’s use for document. • Consider reader’s attitudes and motivations. • Consider reader’s educational and technical levels

5. Consider reader types: • Initial Reader • Primary Reader • Secondary Reader • External Reader

6. Consider reader’s use for document: • Why does this reader want this document? • What purpose will this document serve for the reader?

7. Consider reader’s attitudes and motivations: • How does this reader feel about you or your team? • How does this reader feel about the subject matter? • How receptive or resistant is this reader likely to be?

8. Consider reader’s technical level: • Educational level? • Professional experience? • Expert? Professional nonexpert? Technician? Equipment operator? Student? • What level of material can this reader handle without difficulty?

9. First, analyzing your audience. Second, accommodating your audience.

10. Accommodating your audience: • Consider arrangement. • Consider choice of voice. • Consider use of questions. • Consider politically correct language. • Consider control of emotional responses.

11. Consider arrangement: • Make useful for and appealing to audience • Easy to follow and clearly revealed through forecasting, transitions, and review. • Careful placement of thesis: Up front? In middle? At end?

12. Consider choice of voice: • First person singular “I” • First person plural “we” • Second person “you” • Third person/ objective voice: he/she, they, it, one, people, engineers, patients.

13. Consider use of questions: • Rhetorical questions • Structuring questions • To build dialogue

14. Consider politically correct language: • Avoiding stereotypes (re: race, gender, sexual orientation, region, socioeconomic status, etc.) • Choosing least offensive terms • Using gender-neutral language

15. Consider control of emotional responses: • Appeals to emotions and values • Might wish to avoid certain emotional responses and/or evoke others. • Possible need to frame examples

16. Review: Analyzing your audience • Consider reader types. • Consider reader’s use for document. • Consider reader’s attitudes and motivations. • Consider reader’s educational and technical levels

17. Review: Accommodating your audience • Consider arrangement. • Consider choice of voice. • Consider use of questions. • Consider politically correct language. • Consider control of emotional responses.

18. In conclusion: Questions to ask • 1) What image do I want to create of myself or my team as the writer? • 2) What image do I want to create of my audience? • 3) What image do I want to create of the relationship between myself as writer and my audience?