Give the Audience What They Want

The first article on Audience Analysis explains that there are three types of audiences for every message. I did not include an audience analysis to my project proposal and have included it below-

1. Primary Audience- this is the group that will act so this would be the tutors who will use the guidebook and the students who use the website

2. Secondary Audience- this is the group that is affected by my plan and this would be the director and assistant director of the Writing Center. The guidebook will aid the training process and hopefully increase the amount of students who use the the center.

3. Immediate Audience- this group transmits information so this would be the teachers and professors who send their students to the center.


In Dodge's article he discusses what should be included in professional reports. In the summary section he stated that the summary should include the subject, the significance and action called for or the solution. Most of the time I think that the summary is a condensed version of the report but it should specifically include those three items. Management needs the facts as quickly as possible and the summary is way to give it to them. But in order for the summary to be successful it needs to effectively state the facts. Ensuring that those three aspects are included is a way to ensure that the basics are included in the executive summary.



Vinci' s article on pitfalls is a basic guide for writing successfully. I mention only a few since there are ten. The first pitfalls emphasize remembering the Who, Why and How of the message being written- always keep the audience in mind. The second is to avoid writing to impress. I had a student in the Writing Center who apologized for using simple language in her paper and said she was going to 'beef it up'. I explained to her that it is more important to be clear than to sound smart and be confusing. The third pitfall stresses that the message should only have one goal. Multiple goals can confuse the reader and undermine the intent of the message. The sixth one is not defining your terms. This one is important--if the reader doesn't know what you're talking about how can they understand the conveyed message? When I was in intercollegiate debate one of the first things we put in our affirmative case was the definitions. Definitions provide a base to build the message on. The tenth one is not rewriting. This is the revision step we have read about and need to incorporate. The document can always be better.