Who's your Audience?
4. What is your audience's general background? Here's where we get misunderstandings because of cultural and other differences. For example, in a writing contest for high school students in an urban area, participants were shown a picture of a farmer shearing sheep. Many of the students wrote about the farmer "killing and torturing" the sheep because they were unfamiliar with sheep farming. Similarly, a computer manual used an analogy to "scrimmaging" in a football game was unsuccessful in countries outside the U.S. where football is a completely different game - and probably ineffective with readers who were not sports fans.
I'll be writing more about cultural misunderstandings in the future, and giving some brief, concrete tips on making your writing clear and easy to read. Meanwhile, here are some web addresses to check out:
Go To Page:
1
2
The copyright of the article Who's your Audience? in Workplace Communication is owned by Emily Thrush. Permission to republish Who's your Audience? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Latest Articles