Exercise 1: What to include? What to leave out?
Table 1 contains a collection of details about a research project you have just completed on thunderstorms. Imagine that you’re writing documents for each of the 5 following audiences:
A. Your boss
B. Scientists
C. The general public
D. Politician
E. Students
What information about thunderstorms might each ask you for? As you go down the list, write in the blank spaces in front of each detail the letter that correspond to the audiences that you think would find this detail most relevant. Consider what kind of document might contain that information for that audience.
Table 1. Details About Your Research Project On Thunderstorms
| D | The dollar damage caused by thunderstorms each year. |
| B | A literature review of previous research on thunderstorms. |
| C | Descriptions of calibration procedures for your instruments. |
| E | Some basic physics of how thunderstorms work. |
| A | How much your project costs. |
| B | A log of all your measurements during the whole project. |
| A | A list of everyone who worked on the project. |
| C | Specifications of a new instrument to measure hail size. |
| B | A new result showing a connection between lightning intensity and total rainfall. |
| C | A new result showing how to suppress hail. |
| C | New insights into the flow patterns around thunderstorms. |
| D | Procedures you used to avoid statistical biases in your data. |
| E | Your plans for further measurements. |
| A | Your recommendations for future research. |
Exercise 2: Compare audience needs
What differences in purpose, content, and format would you need to consider in the following examples:
1) A report on Internet Privacy Issues for a new internet user
for an e-commerce website developer
For an e-commerce website developer, you would present it in order to fix the issue that the report is speaking about. For the new internet user, it would serve as warning to their usage and their personal data and how it might not be private.
2) Information on Lyme Disease for camping enthusiasts
for a family practice physician
for public health department
For camping enthusiasts, it serves as a way to be warned about certain areas that are highly prone to tics and the Lyme Disease. For a family practice physician, it would serve as a way to inform their patients of causes and how to prevent getting this disease. For a public health department, they would use this to warn the public of places where the outbreak of this disease is taking place and how to avoid it.
3) Food born diseases for a restaurant worker
for a health inspector training manual
For a restaurant worker it would serve as means to identify possible food borne diseases at the workplace if necessary. For a health inspector training manual, it would serve as means to inform on how to treat these foods borne diseases.
4) Proposal for a new bus shelter design Mayor’s office
Contractor
Newspaper reporter
For the Mayor’s office it would serve as a request since they ultimately are the decision makers in this case. For the contractor this serves as starting point of knowing what type of materials and workers they would need to create this new bus shelter. A newspaper reporter would spread this proposal to the public and possibly get the general public’s opinion on the proposal.
Use the schematic in Table 2 to determine what kind of document with what kind of content would be appropriate for the various audiences above.
Table 2. Audience Analysis Schematic
| 4 categories of audiences | Examples/roles | Kind of information required: |
|
Laypeople
|
General public
Non-Specialists General “users” |
General information and explanation of the situation or of what is being done |
|
Executives
|
Decision Makers
(manage resources and people) |
Need to know the roles that have to be filled in order to execute and what resources they need |
|
Experts |
Advisors
(use their expertise to help decision makers) |
Past examples of other work and what was successful in terms of usefulness for the public |
|
Technicians
|
Implementers |
Plans of execution and instructions of what to do |
Exercise 3: Task and Audience Analysis
Compare these two tasks in terms of intended audience and purpose.
| End of term Course Evaluation | a Ratemyprofessor.com entry | |
| Purpose | The purpose is to inform staff and departments of the college how a professor operates their classes and from there evaluate the professor based on student evaluations.
|
The purpose of a student having an entry in this app or website is to inform other students of the professor and their tendencies and pros and cons. They do this to help fellow students know what they are getting into when signing up for a certain class. |
| Audience | Professors and staff of the college.
|
Future Students |
| Author | A student who took that course
|
A past student |
| What details would you include? What info would your audience expect? | I would include details about the effort I felt the professor put into the material, as well as the difficulty of the material, and the clarity of the material. My audience will be expecting this type of information. | In the app I would include details of the speed of the class, also of how the professor taught in terms of whether or not they would randomly give attitude. I would also add details of the difficulty of work and lastly just my overall opinion on the class. |
