What's Standard English, Part 6: Ain't

This post ain't going to take long to read. Ain't might not have become more standardized in workplace writing, but it is becoming more common in speech. And you can bet that standardized speech eventually becomes standardized workplace writing. You can do your own research on this fact.

You'll never get an opponent to concede that ain't is Standard English, but you will win this one: Ain't has a long history of standard usage before it was discredited by prescriptive grammarians, and I completely understand why. We have standard contractions for you, we, and they are not (aren't) and he, she, and it is not (isn't). But we don't have one for I am not, although amn't has a history of standard English usage. Thus, we have ain't.

Since ain't has not disappeared from English for over three centuries, I believe it will become standard in both speech and writing. Ain't is gaining momentum.

Audience Awareness, Part 2: The Dialogue Method

 A way to address your audience's concerns is what I call the dialogue method. Consider yourself in a dialogue with every possible reader. For example, let's say you wanted management to hire an expert organization to provide customer service training to your Call Center staff, and ten executives show up to your pitch in the conference room. Here are some questions they might ask:

Chief Communications Officer (CCO): How do we sell it to the Call Center?

Chief Information Officer (CIO): Is IT affected?

Chief Business Officer (CBO): Will it grow the business?

Chief Talent Officer (CTO): Are we training the right people?

Chief Legal Officer (CLO): Are there any liability issues?

Chief Research Officer (CRO): Where did you get your supporting data?

Chief Operations Officer (COO): What's the plan to keep the business running?

Chief Financial Officer (CFO): Do we have the budget for it?

Chief Security Officer  (CSO): How much security clearance does the trainer need?

Chief Executive Officer (CEO): What's the return on investment?

Of course, any of the officers could ask any of those ten questions, and any of them could ask numerous other questions. Why do the Call Center staff need the training? How pressing is this problem? How long has it been a problem? Is a lack of training the root cause of the problem? Are there alternatives to training? How long will the training take? What makes the suggested training organization so expert? Where will the training take place? How will we measure results? Will staff revert to previous behavior? And many more. 

I like this technique because all of us frequently ask and answer questions, so listing the questions and answering them seems as natural as speech. It's a good way to jumpstart the writing process.

 

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.