Audience Analysis

1. Audience Analysis Dr. Shelley Thomas ENGL 3100

2. Overview • Benefits of Audience Analysis • Goals of Audience Analysis • Types of Readers

3. Benefits of Audience Analysis • Understanding who will read and use your document helps the writer determine • Type of document • Content, organization, and emphasis • Style of writing • Format, visuals, and layout

4. Audience and Technical Writing • Write in a “reader-friendly” style • Define terms • Structure sentences purposefully and clearly • Select information based on readers’ informational needs • Content • Style • Format

5. Goals of Audience Analysis • Tell the readers what they need to know (details) • Show readers what is easier seen than read (graphs and charts) • Organize information purposefully (cohesion) • Include signals to guide readers • Use familiar organizational patterns • Forecast statements, general to specific, comparison/contrast, to name a few

6. Goals of Audience Analysis (con’t) • Express information directly and concisely (style) • Present information so readers can process it quickly, easily, and accurately (format)

7. Audience Considerations • Primary audience • Those who will use the document to take an action or to make a decision • Those to whom a document is addressed • Secondary audience • Forwarded from primary audience (committee, reviewers, etc.) • Unforeseen readers

8. Types of Readers • Lay Reader • Person reading outside his field of expertise • Decision Maker • Executive reading to make an informed decision • Expert • Person very knowledgeable about the subject matter—reading to deepen her knowledge about the subject

9. Type of Readers (con’t) • Technician • Employee who reads to perform a task or improve skills • Operator • Person who uses information to perform a task

10. Lay Readers • Read for learning and interest • Have more interest in practice than theory • Need help with science and mathematics • Require background and definitions • Need simplicity • Learn from simple graphics

11. Decision Makers • Read to make decisions • Have more interest in practice than theory • Need plain language and simple graphics • Expect implications, conclusions, and recommendations expressed clearly • Read selectively—skimming and scanning • Have self-interests as well as corporate interests

12. Experts • Read for how and why things work • Need and want theory • Will read selectively • Can handle mathematics and terminology of the field • Expect graphics to display results • Need new terms defined • Expect inferences and conclusions to be clearly, but cautiously, expressed and well supported

13. Technicians • Know the inner workings of the product • Read for “How-To” information • Expect emphasis on practical matters • Parts described and numbered • Graphics show a process or task • May have limitations in mathematics and theory • May expect theory of a higher level

14. Operators • Read to discover how to use the product • Expect a clearly written process or task • Will read selectively • Need terms defined • Do not need to understand “inner workings”

15. But … What if the audience includes more than one category? • Write the document to the more general audience • Use signposts, table of contents, page numbers, headings, bulleted lists to help the reader access necessary information

16. Writer’s Mission • Tailor each document to a targeted audience