Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Writers in the workplace carefully analyze their audiences and understand how those audiences interpret and use the documents you write

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Workplace Documents Consider the Audiences’ ‣ Knowledge and expertise about the subject ‣ Expectations and attitudes toward the subject ‣ Ability and power to act

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Classifying documents allows writers to determine ‣ What kind of document to use ‣ What information to include ‣ What style of writing to address ‣ What vocabulary to employ ‣ What organizational strategies to use

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Writers must understand audiences in these ways because they often need to produce documents intended for multiple audiences

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Audiences ‣ Are not passive recipients of information ‣ Have expectations about documents ‣ Have different attitudes toward different subjects ‣ Require documents that suit their needs

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Addressing Audience Attitudes ‣ Positive Attitude ‣ Reaffirm that the readers’ attitudes are correct ‣ Negative Attitude ‣ Address and respond to readers’ objections ‣ Neutral Attitude ‣ Persuade readers to agree

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Workplaces are filled with people who do not always get along, so it is crucial for workplace writers to understand the ways their documents address audiences with varying expectations and attitudes

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Ways that Audiences Use Documents ‣ To skim quickly ‣ To read partially ‣ To read closely from beginning to end ‣ To revise and return to the author ‣ To make a decision or plan a course of action ‣ To support other documents

Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century. © 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved. Multiple Audiences ‣ Often read the same documents ‣ Often have different needs ‣ Often need to be considered in writing documents ‣ Often need to be addressed with different sections of a document