Audience

Quick Outline

Why Audience first? But self-expression? End user thinks in TASKS not FEATURES Think of the Audience’s goals, not just novice/not Read stuff! Empathy.

Links & Resources mentioned:

Excellent resource for Audience Analysis – gives WHY and HOW TO -- https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/aud.html

Habit vs Resource? https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/is-your-podcast-a-reference-or-a-habit-for-your-audience-tap290/

Hosting via PineCast! https://www.pinecast.com/

Music by Punch Deck. https://open.spotify.com/artist/7kdduxAVaFnbHJyNxl7FWV (Omni) is the song used)

Cover image Simon Roberts, artist and designer in Australia and you can find him at http://simonroberts.com.au, or got to http://pod.simon.tel if you’d like him to design your podcast art!

“...writing content for a website about boating for people new to it...” (Example from Roger Munger’s Document-Based Case Studies For Technical Writing, First Edition ; I greatly prefer this example to 2nd edition’s gardening one. ) ISBN-13: 978-0312438517

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Transcript/script

Hello, writing people! This is the first episode of Alphabetical April: Writing Advice, Arbitrarily Organized, a podcast helping you get started, get metacognitive, and then to reread, rethink, rewrite!

Let’s start today, and this season, talking about audience. I can’t get into depth about analyzing like I did when teaching my Technical Communication class, but in the show notes I’ll have a link to a great resource on that!

So why start with Audience? Well, first because it starts with “A”. I was considering starting this with a punctuation season: Apostrophe, Brackets, Colons… and that will come later.

But remembering that Audience and Purpose were the keywords of most of my instruction meant that if I started with fussy details, then my audience would be mostly prescriptive grammarians or those who only need little bits of information. In fact, The Audacity to Podcast’s episode on “Resource vs Habit” helped me clarify this thought. But writing is for everyone, and it can be about exploration and expression, not just error-avoidance.

Granted, a lot of my advice may skew towards academic writing, but I’ve helped people with plays, fiction, work presentations,. And just general communication.

Now if you’re like “MY writing is for ME…” Great! You’re your own audience! At my day job as a technical writer, I label my working, initial drafts “Chaos Drafts” – they’re not for anyone else to understand, just me. Journal entries, daily pages? Just me. But if I take that approach, on reddit, say, then anyone reading is like … “wha?” This has happened, and then I am embarrassed at how unclear my default state is.

But a ton of writing is ultimately for an audience. When drafting, sure, ignore them. Self-expression? They get you or not, and that’s the choice. But when editing and refining, (sigh) you need to think – who will read this?

In tech writing, my initial drafts eventually have all the features (every menu and button and screen I can find) and all the ways I figured out how to Do The Thing. But the end user thinks in Tasks, not Features. Give that user just one, maybe two ways to complete the task.

In fiction, you my love world building or all the character backstory, but the readers want The Story. You may do great research that your colleagues appreciate, but your manager needs just quick costs and results.

Don’t think of Audiences as only Novice, Peer, and Expert – think about their GOALS for reading, and what relevant background they may have. If I’m writing content for a website about boating for people new to recreational boaters, that doesn’t mean I need to be condescending – these people may be new to boats, but they may be professionals and experts in their own fields. Lacking information about something does NOT mean lacking intelligence.

There’s no quick way to learn, like, 3 tricks to understand your audience’s needs perfectly. Alas, like most writing, a lot of it is by feel. The one thing that’s useful is to read similar works. You can read strategically – check out sentence length, vocabulary level, topics covered, but honestly, awareness of the audience, especially when revising and editing, that’s the biggest thing. Empathy. Remembering that other people have different goals.

So… that was my First episode! If you liked it, share with a friend or colleague. And of course, subscribe in your podcast app – I use Podcast Addict – to get new episodes and to easily find older ones. When there are older ones.

Here’s a preview of some of the upcoming topics! I’m pretty sure nonfiction doesn’t need a spoiler alert. Bricks and Beacons, Cite as you write, metacognition, reverse outlines, the magic thesis formula, understanding via paraphrase, quitting, writer’s block, conscious competence… and over a dozen more for season 1! Season 2 is citation, S3 is punctuation, then I may get into more of a fiction focus for a bit. I miss playwriting.

Again, please subscribe to Alphabetical April: Writing Advice, Arbitrarily Organized – soon I’ll have feedback options.

Credits:

Media hosting via PineCast! Five dollars a month, unlimited shows. https://www.pinecast.com/

Music by Punch Deck. https://open.spotify.com/artist/7kdduxAVaFnbHJyNxl7FWV (Omni) is the song used)

Cover image Simon Roberts, artist and designer in Australia and you can find him at http://simonroberts.com.au!