Basic audience analysis for undergraduate technical communication classes.

1. Audience
Analysis
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2. Why not just
wing it?
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3. Three questions for
every document:
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4. Who are you
talking to?
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5. Why are you
talking to them?
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6. How are you going to
accomplish that?
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7. First things first.
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8. What Is An Audience, Anyway?
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9. The elusive
“General Audience”
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10. (It’s a rare and elusive beastie. Quite possibly extinct.)
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11. But there is such
a thing as a
Highly Variable Audience
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12. Bottom Line:
You gotta figure
out who they are
and what they
want from you.
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13. How else do I find out?
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14. How else do I find out?
Ask them.
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15. How else do I find out?
Ask them.
Do your research.
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16. Demographic Features
www.highcountryinfo.com
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17. • Age
• Gender
• Education Level
• Experience
• Attitudes
• Culture
• Class / income level
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18. Context-Dependent Features
• Role(s) within the
Organization
• Decision-Making Power
• Motives
• Use of Information
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19. Group Features
• Group Ethos
• Room Size
• Room Layout
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20. Secondary Audiences
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21. Let’s apply this,
shall we?
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22. For my next trick...
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23. I shall analyze
this class.
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24. Age
18-ish late-20s
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25. Gender
43%
57%
Female Male
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26. Education Level
• 100% undergraduate Junior Senior
5%
95%
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27. Widely Varied Majors
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28. Experience, Attitudes, Motives
• Generally fairly inexperienced, although
some may have gained moderate experience
through coursework, internships, community
work.
• Generally here to fulfill degree
requirements. Not particularly excited
about the material.
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29. Some plans to attend
grad school
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30. Roles Within Organization
• Students
• Tuition-paying
• Consumers
• Hope of Tomorrow, etc.
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31. Decision-Making Power
• Not decision makers within university, but
can influence decision-makers
• Can make decisions within classroom
context
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32. Group Ethos
• Motivated to graduate
• Prepared for boredom
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33. So now we know
who you are.
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34. Now we need to figure
out what our purpose is.
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35. Purpose
controls
content!
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36. How many purposes
can you have?
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37. 2
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38. Possible Primary
Purposes:
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39. To inform
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40. To persuade
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41. Both
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42. Account for
time and attention spans
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43. Context defines purpose.
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44. Is your topic sensitive
or difficult?
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45. Are you selling yourself?
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46. Do you know your
audience or are they
strangers?
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47. Common Contexts in STC
• Training Seminars
• Conference Presentations
• Status Reports
• Design Reviews
• Group Reports
• Pitches
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48. Ask Yourself:
• Who is my audience?
• What do they want from me?
• What do I need to take into consideration
about this context?
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49. Be as specific as possible.
The primary purpose of my presentation is to
_________ for an audience consisting of
____________. In order to effectively do this,
I need to ____________, ___________, and
______________.
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