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Re: Can I Have Your Opinions and Ideas on Audience?
Subject:Re: Can I Have Your Opinions and Ideas on Audience? From:Romay Jean Sitze <rositze -at- NMSU -dot- EDU> Date:Mon, 7 Nov 1994 18:06:25 -0700
On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, Sonina Velasquez wrote:
> There
> has to be a tool out there (the missing link) that technical writers can
> use to effectively WRITE TO A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE. What I have found is a
> list of questions, such as
> 1. What do you do for a living?
> 2. What are your key responsibilities?
> 3. What will you be using this information (technical document for)?
> 4. etc.
> The closest "other" tool I have seen I some how fell upon at a seminar by
> Career Tracks called --"How to Handle People With Tact and Skill"
> It was a reference table in the back of the seminar booklet which was
> designed to help people communicate (verbally-tactfully) with difficult
> people they work with. Although in its raw form it can not be used to help
> technical communicators address a specific audience, but maybe modified
> slightly it can help. I have tried rewriting it, but need help to refine it
> as a working tool.
> The basic concept behind the reference table is that people or people's
> personalities can be categorized. Once categorized (type a, type b, type c)
> you can figure out how to address that person. I know this might seem quite
> shallow at first glance, but it may be worth a try.
> Shy, Aggressive, Demanding, Leader, Follower (the list goes on--if you are
> interested I'll write more about the categories next time). Once you find
> out or figure out what type of personality you are writing for, you can
> look on this reference card and see how best to address that type of a
> person. I imagine it takes practice and intuitiveness.
This is a pretty standard personality trait type of thing. It is
used in marketing and in education to tailor material on an
individual basis. While in the broadest sense if may have some validity,
unfortunately, most people are a composite. Because most reading audiences
are composed of wide variety of personalities, I would think this type of
tool would be useless as a means of audience analysis. About the only
application I can see would
be for a very limited audience that is well known.
****************************************
* RoMay Sitze rositze -at- nmsu -dot- edu *
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* Results! Why, man, I have gotten *
* a lot of results. I know several *
* thousand things that won't work. *
* Thomas A. Edison *
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