After reading Lannon, I realize how imperative it is to know your audience. I have always known that it is important, but I never fully understood the necessity of understanding who they are and what skills they are coming equipped with. I always thought, "well, if you are speaking to teenagers then its good to know that so you can throw in some relevant examples." It goes further than that though, becuase I can think of several examples of when I was a part of something that I was not the intended audiance for something and I felt uncomfortable.
For example, last year I bought an entertainment stand that was not pre-assembled. In my dorm room with my three tools out, I was determined to get it together correctly the first time. The manual with pictures was not very well done and I ended up guessing for some steps. I like to think of myself as pretty handy when it comes to assembling things, so I felt confident making some guesses, but as I did so, I thought about the other people who purchase those goods who have maybe never assembled something before. That was an example of something that was poorly written for the audience.
Even when something is well written, if it is distrubuted to the wrong audiance it might not be effective either. I once tried to read my grandfather's medical chart to get the inside scoop on what was happening. What I saw looked like a foriegn language that I did not understand. The nurses and doctors fared just fine reading it. Conversely, I have taken a class that was taught on a remedial level. Even though the class is designed for upper-level students, I felt certain that the professor thought we were all fresh out of high school the way she was teaching. I find both to be equally frustrating. If its too complex for me, I get frustrated and don't want to engage but if it is too simplified I am bored and easily distracted.
I know that it is impossible to know your primary and secondary audiences perfectly, but I think it is very important to do whatever possible to pinpoint your audiance so your document can be specifically tailored to them.
You make a great point of knowing your audience in order to get your point across. If have it too difficult for your audience you will fail and if it is too simple you wont succeed either. Its a tricky thing to do!
ReplyDeleteI have definitely been in both situations concerning classes where you either know too much or too little at the beginning of the class. It seems as if you should not be sitting there and need to be switched to an upper or lower level class, respectively. Most of the time this is not possible due to prerequisite needs, ect., but the teacher should definitely try to tailor his teachings a little bit to fit the knowledge of the class.
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard to pinpoint the exact audience needs all the time. I think the best approach is to write to the majority and try to address the possible gaps in understanding later. For instance, if you are writing instructions for a group of office workers who are knowledgeable about Excel, you may skip some of the more basic operations in the instructions, but include a more detailed breakdown in an appendix. This way you cover all the bases and avoid insulting the intelligence of the primary audience.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it can be uncomfortable when you are not included into the general audience. I know that I have been stuck in those situations before. But, I do know that it is difficult to try to please everyone in the audience as well. I've worked at summer camps before where I had to give a message about Christ knowing that there were kids that were Jewish or non-believers. It's not only hard on those kids, but it was hard on me as well because I knew I was telling them things that they have heard before and they didn't want to hear again.
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