To: Nancy Myers

From: Dana Komberec

Date: April 8, 2021
Subject: APLED 121- Chapter 5 Outline

AUDIENCE RECOGNITION
Audience recognition
 Who is this audience?
 What do they know?
 What do they not know?
 How do you get your point across?
 What needs to be changed between presentations to adapt to a new audience?
 What’s the audience’s position in relation to yours?
 What diversity issues arise due to your presentation?
Knowledge of Subject Matter
 You need to know the ins and outs of what you’re saying.
 Consider what the audience needs to know and what you know so that you can see if there are
any gaps
 Recognize from where your audience is coming from
 Break it down for the low-tech audience
 Determine what they need to know and cut other things that they don’t for the sake of
simplification.
 Define the terms that you are using.
 Simplification is absolutely vital for the low tech audience.
Writing for Future Audiences
 Technical communication is archived usually; considering possible future use of your
correspondence, has the audience changed as well as what needs to be contained?
 Make sure, when applicable, all context is present so it is possible for all to understand.
Defining Terms for Audiences
 Know the toolbox to help various audiences understand your work with minimal flow disruption
 Use acronyms, abbreviations, and technical jargon? You decide.
 If you decide to use more complex terms, you can add an explanation using parentheses, in an
extended paragraph, in a glossary, or online help with a pop-up definition.
 Define terms with the term itself, what manner of thing the term is, and its distinguishing
characteristics.
Consider Personality of Audience
 You can know how to set the tone of your communication by knowing who you’re talking to and
how they’d take it.
 If you don’t know the audience personally, identify issues to relate with them on.
Biased Language- Issues of Diversity
  You’re dealing with race, gender identity, religion, and language. That’s a lot of prospective
people to possibly tick off. Don’t.
 Ensure nobody’s toes are being stepped on in the least. In fact, probably shouldn’t stare at
anyone’s toes too long…
 While there is the aspect of being extra careful to not hurt feelings, ensure that respect is at the
very core of what you are doing.
Multiculturalism
 Worldwide audiences have even more varied cultures and you need to consider that in order to
reach out to them in a way that resonates with them.
 Ensure language barriers of any kind have their translations checked for accuracy.
Cross-Cultural Workplace Communication
 Even in the workplace there will be cross cultural interactions that need to be considered.
 Define acronyms and abbreviations
 Avoid the Jargon and Idioms
 If the text is going to be translated, don’t use slash marks to minimize confusion
 Avoid humor and puns since they don’t translate well in most cases.
 Translation may take more or less paper space, which is especially important when the
translation will be printed elsewhere.
 Be careful with numbers and measurements since those might not translate well either.
 Stylized graphics must be reduced to the lowest common denominator (stick people) in order to
avoid offending people.
Avoiding Biased Language
 Ageist language, such as calling *ahem* “people over seventy” elderly, old folk, or otherwise
creates a negative language, so call them less offensive terms such as “retirees” until that
inevitably becomes offensive too and you have to rethink your terms.
 Don’t call people handicapped. That’s offensive too. Use disabled. But that’s becoming offensive
too. Differently-abled? Either way, know what’s “in” when referring to other people.
 Women aren’t a separate audience category.
Audience Involvement
 Make the tone more personal instead of non-specific
 While considering audience, make sure you let the audience in mind know what benefit they
can reap that they want.
Writing Process at Work
 Prewrite by making an outline draft with the bones of what it is you’re writing.
 Fill in the bones during the writing portion and create sentences and paragraphs to convey your
point.
 Rewrite by fixing grammar and other such issues in your previous draft. Make sure the draft is
the best it can be before sending it off.