Audience Awareness, Part 1: What is it?

Our writing is purposeful when we understand what we want our readers to know or do. But purposefulness is just half the story. If you were an IT analyst, would you tell your president how to complete an online procedure the same way you tell a fellow subject-matter expert? If you were a salesperson, would you describe the product or service you are selling to your customer the same way you would to your production supervisor? If you were a project manager, would you explain the contractual process to your concrete contractor the same way you would to your in-house inspector?  Of course, the answer in all three cases is no. Accepting this reality is the first step to becoming aware of your audience's concerns, knowledge, and needs.

Now here comes the hard part. What are their concerns? Is it only price. I doubt it. What do your readers know? Are they at a beginner level? Probably not. What do they need? Chances are, those needs are not exactly what our needs are. For these reasons and others, we should perform an audience analysis before spinning our wheels by flying through a pointless draft with several logical or contextual holes in it.

I often hear, "What if I don't know the full range of readers? I'm writing a report for my manager, but I'm not sure if the executive staff, legal department, or regulatory agencies might read it." Then assume the executives, lawyers, and regulators will read the report, and write it to your least informed reader. 

Still, I admit, that answer is easier said than done. This is why I use a self-made Audience Analysis Worksheet for complex documents that go to readers at multiple levels of an organization and even outside the organization. For instance, a worksheet for a project status report might look like this:

1. Who will read this report? List your readers' names and titles.
2. What is their relationship to your report? Some readers may need just to be in the loop for informational purposes, others may read the report to update their team, which may be tangentially engaged in the project; others may need to troubleshoot the issues you are reporting.
3. Who are the stakeholders? Who else might read the report only when a success or hurdle you mention affects their vital interests? 
4. What questions would they have? Consider questions like, Why are we engaged in this project? What phase of the project are you up to? What problems have you encountered? What caused the problems? How long have they been problems? How did you discover the problems? How did you attempt to resolve the problems? How did you determine the approach to solving the problems? How many staff hours were involved? What crafts or disciplines were involved? How successful were you at addressing the problems? What is the status of the problems now? What have you done to ensure the problems do not recur? What is your mitigation plan? What is your work plan for the next phase? What human, fiscal, equipment, and real property resources will you need? When do you plan to complete the next phase? When will you release the next status report or completion report? If you think these are heaps of questions to answer, I can think of many, many more. If you think I've missed some, list them in your own audience analysis.
5. Do any of my readers need to do anything? If yes, should I write to those individuals separately in addition to supplying them with this report? 

The challenge as a business or technical writer is to reckon with the fact that each message may require different readers, therefore, to answer different questions. Sometimes, we discover new questions as we draft our message, but there's nothing as intimidating to writers as a blank screen when their mind is all over the place. That's why reflecting on your audience will at the least turn that blank screen into ideas we're likely to include in our message.

"I hope this message finds you well."

"I hope this email finds you well ... I hope you are doing fine ... I hope you are having a good day ... I hope you had a good weekend ..."

Ugh! Who are we kidding? We all know how disingenuous those openers come across. Besides, they have nothing to do with the message that follows. I recently received this email starter from a client:

I hope this email finds you well. We are cancelling your class next Thursday due to insufficient space. 

Really? She just ruined my day! 

I admit that I have felt compelled to use that sentence myself when I am working for one of several corporations or government agencies whose leaders have made clear to me their expectation for staff to open written messages that way. But who says a CEO is infallible? Most of us correctly read that sentence as timewasting, thoughtless, insincere, and useless, even incongruous or ridiculous. I usually don't open that way and prefer not to.

I am a big proponent of using courteous language. A tone-sensitive opening of "Good day" or a specific comment connecting you to your reader, such as "Thank you for attending the meeting this morning," would work better. I really do hope my message finds you well, but there are better ways to express that sentiment.

Is the Human Writer Dead?

Technical writers, script writers, and even novelists might seek a new endeavor after reading an article like "AI and the End of the Human Writer" by Samanth Subramanian, which appeared in The New Republic already a year ago (April 22, 2024). The most common questions I get as a corporate writing consultant these days revolve around artificial intelligence. Do you use AI? (Yes.) Can AI help me write better? (Yes.) How accurate is AI? (Very.) How reliable is AI? (Very.) Should I let my school-aged children use AI? (Yes.) Should AI be banned from the classroom? (No.) Will AI replace my job? (Maybe.)

My article, "Using AI to Improve Writing Creativity, Productivity, and Quality" for ACS Chemical Health & Safety, describes many ways that AI can help on-the-job writers. Programs like Google's Bard, Microsoft's Copilot, and OpenAI's ChatGPT can help you plan, draft, rewrite, or translate a document:

•  Planning – Tell AI to "list features to include in a house description," and it will give you more details than you might have thought of under the categories exterior, interior, outdoor space, amenities, accessibility, and location. If this content is not enough, simply ask it, "Anything else?" and it will immediately list finer details, such as alarm system, safety locks, flooring, interior decor, smart home features, high-speed internet, laundry room, basement, attic, and community benefits. Ask it again, "Any other ideas," and it won't give up, providing other information, none of it redundant.  
• Drafting – Give it a list of ideas for, say, a country description, such as the square miles, geography, population, political system, religion, customs, cuisine, and folklore of Malta. In seconds, it will generate a 1,000-word essay including footnotes. If the depth of content in that draft won't do, ask it for an expanded version, and you'll get one, again in seconds.
• Rewriting – Drop in a document riddled with grammatical, diction, spelling, and punctuation miscues with the simple prompt, "Correct this," and AI will render a virtually error-free message. While AI does not yet organize ideas as effectively as it corrects mistakes, it is a reliable editing partner for basic documents.   
• Translating –  AI translating services may not have the high-minded attention to style as have human translators of fine literature, but it does a sufficient job with basic business writing. At the prompt of "Translate this into Spanish" (or many other major languages), your English text will be accessible globally. 

But is the human writer dead? If we are, we remain far from useless in the workplace. We still depend on human interaction to transact deals, investigate incidents, interview job candidates, deliver presentations, supervise staff, operate and repair equipment, and numerous other tasks—all of which require some type of writing, or at least dictation. Besides, as technology evolves, so do we.

On Not Playing It Safe

"I would write, but I can't take rejection."

"I always wanted to write but doubt I have the talent."

"I want to write but don't have the time."

"I don't have a good place to write."

"I would write if it weren't for my job."

"I'll write when I retire."

These are the excuses I have heard for a half century from people who claim aspirations of writing. They should read Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner's 1956 interview in the Paris Review. Faulkner famously said, "An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done." 

As a writer, Faulkner was ruthless, and his prodigious output proves that he did not suffer fools, failures, or frenzies to stop him from writing. Even our ego should be worthless to us once we write:  

Interviewer: Then could the lack of security, happiness, honor, be an important factor in the artist's creativity?

Faulkner: No. They are important only to his peace and contentment, and art has no concern with peace and contentment.

Interviewer: Then what would be the best environment for a writer?

Faulkner: Art is not concerned with environment either; it doesn't care where it is.

Now if those aren't words to frighten away the pretenders, then I don't know what are. For the rest of us still hanging in there, we must remember Faulkner's point. There are no excuses. Just do it. Get to work.