Today’s Topic: Know Your Audience April 4, 2012 Class Dedicated to Lance Corporal Trevor Pontifex

1. Today’s Topic: Know Your AudienceApril 4, 2012Class Dedicated to Lance Corporal Trevor Pontifex You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. – Albert Einstein The finest ideas in the world are only idle thoughts if one cannot convey them to others. From A Word a Day, 4/2/12 (www.awad.org)

2. Who Are They? Ask These Questions about Them • What are common threads that define your target audience as a group? • Educational level? • Race/ethnicity? • Country of origin? • Native language? • Age? • Income level? • Typical life experience? (You have to imagine this one…) • What are their values? • What are their biases? Likes and dislikes? • What is their use/familiarity with technology? • What motivates them? • How do they prefer to spend their time? • What is the length of their attention span? • What other questions might you ask to define your audience?

3. Each Person Has“Multiple Personalities” • Scientist • Parent • Child • Donor • Activist • A certain cultural perspective

4. Empathy: Try to Put Yourself in Their Place • What are they likely to know/understand or not about your topic? • Do they care about your topic? If they don’t, how can you still interest them in it? • What does their understanding of your topic mean in terms of how you present the information? • Think about context, level of detail, formal vs. more casual tone, length of material

5. User-centered Design • Consider your audience’s • Expectations: What information do they expect to get? • Their characteristics: Who, specifically, is reading the work? Is the audience part of the decision making process? Will stakeholders read the work? Or is the audience a mixture of decision makers, stakeholders, and shadow readers? What organizational positions does the audience hold and how might this affect document expectations? • Example: Management, technical, marketing, and financial staff. • Would you write separate documents for each audience? • Their goals: What are your readers planning to accomplish? What should be included in your documents so that your readers get the information they need? • Their context: For what type of situation do the readers need this information? Make decision, take action, etc.? (Source: Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/624/01/)

6. User-centered Design (Cont.) • Identify information readers will need, and make that information easily accessible and understandable. • Consider how the document will be used rather than just how it will be read. (Emphasis is mine.) • Keep in mind the relationship between (1) those who wrote the document, (2) those who will read and act upon it, and (3) those who will be affected by those actions. (“Document Lifecycle”) (Source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20061101102119_629.pdf)

7. Example: You Propose a Change in a Process • Who writes the document: You. • Who reads and acts on it: Your academic advisor, your dean, your boss, etc. • Who will be affected by the actions taken: Your classmates, coworkers, you too. (Don’t forget yourself as audience!)

8. Contrarian View from John Steinbeck Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one. (Source: Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck, http://us2.forward-to-friend1.com/forward/show?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=41f88a3ce2)

9. Example: Program Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services • Educational level? • Race/ethnicity? • Country of origin? • Native language? • Age? • Income level? • What is a typical day like for him? (You have to imagine this one…) • Family situation? • What are his values? Likes, dislikes? • What are his biases? • What is his use of technology? • How technical is he? • What motivates him? • What is his attention span? • What type of person is he?

10. Example: Your Grandmother • Educational level? • Race/ethnicity? • Country of origin? • Native language? • Age? • Income level? • What is a typical day like for her? • Family situation? • What are her values? • What are her biases? • What is her use of technology? • How technical is she? • What motivates her? How does she prefer to spend her time? • What is her attention span? • What type of person is she?

11. Another Example: UCSD Retirement Association • Educational level? • Race/ethnicity? • Country of origin? • Native language? • Age? • Income level? • What is a typical day like? • Family situation? • Values? Likes, dislikes? • Biases? • Use of technology? • How technical is this audience? • What motivates them? • What is their attention span? • What type of people are they?

12. Assignment • Reader: Meredith, Part I, Chapter 1, pp. 17-29. • Writing assignment: Think about the broad range of audiences you're going to encounter: your advisor, technical peers, general educated (12th-grade) audience that knows nothing about your topic, program officer at a funding agency who does, a business woman, a clerk at the grocery, your grandmother, a 5-year-old child, someone hard of hearing, etc.Write 250 words each for two very different audiences on the same technical topic (your academic discipline, your lab, your workplace, etc.). Identify those two audiences, then explain in 1-2 paragraphs why and how you tailored the topic, what considerations you had, and what choices you made in each case. • Due: Session 4 (April 11)

13. Fundamentals of Good Writing • Target audience • Multiple levels of structure: – overall, paragraph, sentence. • Clear purpose (good “lede” paragraph establishing the key issue you plan to discuss) • Context • Understanding your material; determining what does/does not matter

14. Fundamentals of Good Writing (Cont.) • Organization – role of the outline • Logical, linear progression – left to right, less to more, progression in time (earlier to later) • Effective use of transitions to support the logic (but, however, nonetheless, moreover, first/second/third/finally) • Clarity (esp. in relationships between people and things, relationships between sentences) • Anticipating areas of potential confusion • Addressing questions up front

15. Fundamentals of Good Writing (Cont.) • Conciseness – every word should have a role that matters; precision in choice of individual words • Ref: The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White (2012) • Consistency (e.g., use of single name of organization, single term to denote a concept) • Simplicity • In structure, logic; e.g., A+B=C; simple relationships: A does B to effect outcome C • In word choice, type of verb (present tense) • From general (context) to increasing levels of detail; determining how much detail to include

16. Fundamentals of Good Writing (Cont.) • Emphasis – First sentence (context) and last sentence (conclusion) of a paragraph, end of a sentence • Variety of sentence length – Use shorter sentence, esp. at the end of a paragraph for more emphasis • Active voice (vs. passive) – Makes relationship between things more clear • Qualifiers – Avoid them (e.g., rather, very, little, pretty, actually)

17. Fundamentals of Good Writing (Cont.) • Storytelling to pique interest • Personal tone • Use of humor (though not always appropriate esp. in written communication)