Audience and Purpose Markel Lecture Slides

8/13/2019 Audience and Purpose Markel Lecture Slides

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CHAPTER 5MIKE MARKEL

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First determine the type of audience you intend tocommunicate with and then determine the purpose:

AUDIENCE prospective applicants

PURPOSE to describe the job opening and motivatequalified persons to apply

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The audiences education professional experience

job responsibility personal characteristics personal preferences cultural characteristics

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The primary audience Secondary audience Tertiary audience

Why the audience members may read/listen to yourdocument: to learn what you have accomplished in the project to determine whether to approve any

recommendations you present to determine whether to assign you to a follow-up team to determine how to evaluate your job performancenext month

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If audience is neutral: respond to the audiences needsand purpose

If audience is hostile: Find out the objections and then

address them directly by explaining why benefitsoutweigh the objections First add explanations then give recommendations Seek areas of agreement and neutral ground

If audience has formulated a policy/procedure: Seek togive recommendations to further improve its workinginstead of criticizing what is wrong with the policy

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By interviewing people who may know about theaudience

Searching for information on internet

Reading documents written by the audience

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Political Social Economic Religious Educational Technological Linguistic

Numbers and dates: UNITED STATES 3,425.6

EUROPE 3.425,6 UNITED STATES March 2, 2009 3/2/09 EUROPE 2 March 2009 2/3/09 JAPAN 2009 March 2 09/3/2

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Focus on individuals or groups

Distance between business life and private life

Distance between ranks

Nature of truth

Need to spell out details

Attitudes toward uncertainty

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Each variable represents a spectrum of attitudes:High Context and Low Context

The six variables do not line up in a clear pattern

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"What do I want this document to accomplish?

When your readers have finished reading what you

have written, what do you want them to know orbelieve?

What do you want them to do?

Your writing should help your readers carry out atask, understand a concept, or hold a particular belief.

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In defining your purpose, think of a verb that represents it.(Sometimes, of course, you have several purposes.)

You can use verbs to communicate information to yourreaders: Communicating verbs: describe explain illustrate review authorize defineinform outline summarize

Or you can use verbs to convince the audience to accept

your particular point of view: Convincing Verbs: assess request recommend forecast propose evaluate

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This report describesthe research project intended todetermine the effectiveness of the new waste-treatment filter.

This letter authorizesthe purchase of six new laptops for the

Jenkintown facility.

This memo recommendsthat we revise the Web site as soonas possible.

Reviewcould in some cases be a convincingverb rather thana communicating verb: one writers review of a complicatedsituation might be very different from another's.

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If you want to persuade your reader to lease a newcomputer system rather than purchase it, you mightphrase the purpose this way:

.to explainthe advantages of leasing overpurchasing.

Many readers don't want to be persuaded but arewilling to learn new facts or ideas.

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Audience and Purpose Markel Lecture Slides

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