Drake English 313

Adapting Your Message to Your Audience:

1) Identify ALL possible audiences.  Who are ALL the people who may eventually want or need to read your document?

2) Analyze the discourse community.

~ If this is your first document for a specific group (your new co-workers, for example), ask for copies of similar documents from others.  Model your own document on existing forms and conventions.

~ Learn to walk the walk and talk the talk by watching others walk and talk.  Use what you learned from analyzing and adapting to the college community to analyze and adapt to new and different communities. 

~ College should have trained you to be aware of:

          ~ What people ask for and how to give it to them.

          ~ Acceptable and unacceptable communication habits.

  3) Identify the audience's expectations, needs and wants, and structure your message to satisfy these in specific ways.

~ You CANNOT assume you know the audience in general, abstract ways;  therefore, you must analyze their expectations, needs etc. in terms of your specific message and document.

  4) Revise ALL documents for the following:

~ Content/Information:  Does the document address what the reader needs to know or what you, the writer, already knows?  

~ Structure/Order: Are topics ordered to satisfy the reader's needs?

            ~ Tone: address the reader with the proper degree of respect based on:

                    ~ Your status in relation to the reader.

                    ~ The discourse community and "culture".

                    ~ Previous communication.

                    ~ Negative stereotypes the reader has about you.

                   ~ Reader Benefits phrased in You Attitude.