Week

02: Audience Analysis & Communication Barriers

Dr. Dario Del Degan

 Communication Theory
Audience Analysis
Adapting to Audience

Communication Barriers
Next Week

 Communication Theory
Audience Analysis
Adapting to Audience

Communication Barriers
Next Week

Message
encode

decode

Channels

(verbal and non-verbal)

Sender

Receive

Roles
Needs
lf-concept
nowledge
Attitudes
motions

Roles
Needs
Self-conce
Knowledg
Attitudes
Emotion

decode
(Lannon & Klepp, p.25)

encode

Feedback

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYZClMeQcOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og1GqFWEXMs

Reduce occurrence for miscommunication

Tailor our messages appropriately

Select the appropriate channels that will reach

our audiences

Unclear technical communication can be

dangerous

Unclear technical communication is expensive

 On March 28, 1979, Unit 2

suered a partial meltdown

after water meant for cooling the
uranium fuel was released from
the containment chamber due to
an equipment malfunction.

Roughly 25,000 people lived

within 5 miles of giant cooling

towers

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/
tmi/gallery/photo1.htm

Source: http://content.answcdn.com/main/content/img/getty/2/1/3091621.jpg

 4 years after the accident, a video

camera was lowered into the Unit

2 reactor core

Damage to its uranium fuel was

more extensive than originally

thought

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tmi/
gallery/photo10.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPAigMuBk0&feature=related

The $2.5 Billion

Memorandum
Communication networks did not

correspond to the lines of

authority for decision making

Treatment of communication

process as informational rather

than decision making

Lack of adequate feedback

Mixture of modes of

communication

Source: http://www.martinwestlake.eu/wp-content/uploads/
2011/03/Nuclear_-_Three_Mile_Island.jpg

J. J. Kellys Memo
Nov. 1, 1977

J. J. Kellys Memo
Nov. 1, 1977

Two recent events at the Toledo site have pointed out that
perhaps we are not giving our customers enough guidance on
the operation of the high pressure system. On September 24,
1977, after depressurizing due to a stuck open electromatic
relief valve, high pressure injection was automatically initiated.
The operator stopped the HPI when pressurizer level began to
recover, without regard to primary pressure. As a result, the
transient continued on with boiling in the RCS, etc.

In a similar occurrence on October 23, 1977, the operator
bypassed high pressure injection to prevent initiation, even
though reactor coolant system pressure went below the
actuation point.I wonder what guidance, if any, we should
be giving to our customers on when they can safely shut the
system down following an accident?

J. J. Kellys Memo
Nov. 1, 1977

Two recent events at the Toledo site have pointed out that perhaps we are not giving
our customers enough guidance on the operation of the high pressure system. On
September 24, 1977, after depressurizing due to a stuck open electromatic relief
valve, high pressure injection was automatically initiated. The operator stopped the
HPI when pressurizer level began to recover, without regard to primary pressure. As
a result, the transient continued on with boiling in the RCS, etc.

In a similar occurrence on October 23, 1977, the operator bypassed high pressure
injection to prevent initiation, even though reactor coolant system pressure went
below the actuation point.I wonder what guidance, if any, we should be giving
to our customers on when they can safely shut the system down following an
accident?

I recommend the following guidelines be sent:
(a) Do not bypass or otherwise prevent the actuation of high/low pressure injection
under any conditions except a normal, controlled plant shutdown.
(b) Once high/low pressure injection is initiated, do not stop it unless: Tave is stable
or decreasing and pressurizer level is increasing and primary pressure is at least
1600 PSIG and increasing.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this subject.

 Memo was taken as implying criticism

Memo presented as a request for a response

rather than a proposal aimed at resolving

problem (Possibility of a problem not
asserted)

Use of hedging (perhaps, wonder, what

guidance, if any)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv-sV5zfmhM&feature=related

 The role of the technical communication

practitioner stems from the need for

membership in two distinct professions to
connect Engineers have created some new
technology and users who are unfamiliar
with the technology want or need to
understand that technology.

- Nicole Amare (2002)

 Technical communication creates common

ground between the technician and the user/

audience:

Technology
Technical
Communicator
User/Audience

 Patient has chronic renal insuciency and

subsequent anemia of chronic disease.

Patients serum creatinine is 5. He will need
erythropoietic agents and parenteral iron.

What audience would this sample

diagnosis from a nephrologist be intended

for?

This patient has persistent kidney disease. As a result

of his kidneys not functioning properly, the patient
has developed anemia, which is partially due to iron
shortage. The malfunction of the kidney has caused it
to retain too much toxic protein; a normal creatinine
level is <1.0. The therapy involves adding a bone
marrow stimulant hormone and iron supplements to
the patients blood through an intravenous (IV) line to
aid in the rate of absorption.

anemia = iron shortage

parenteral = intravenous
creatinine >1.0 = too much toxic protein

Know both the technical eld and the users technical

jargon

Understand users needs and the goals to be achieved

Develop documents that are familiar and

comprehensible to two distinct groups and benecial
to both groups

Produce translations or create a new vocabulary/set

of terms when translation is dicult

 Communication Theory
Audience Analysis
Adapting to Audience
Communication Barriers
Next Week

 What is audience?

 What is audience?

As technical communicators, why do we

need to understand our audience?

 What is audience?

As technical communicators, why do we

need to understand our audience?

Who might your audience include?

1.

Experts

2.

Executives and Managers

3.

Technicians

4.

Non-specialists or General Readers

Writing for the Reader PDF Course Documents Week 2-Lecture

a primary audience of people who requested the

document and use it to act or make decisions

a secondary audience of people will be aected

by decisions of primary audience and who may
need only parts of your document and may not
necessarily act on that information

a tertiary audience of people who might take an

interest in the subject but arent strongly aected
by it

Identify the demographic

Organize and group your audience

Determine characteristics

Consider how information is comprehended

Situational awareness

Other factors

Who is your audience?

Why is your audience reading the document?

What do you want them to take away from this document?

What action do you expect from your audience?

What does the audience already know about the subject?

How will your audience read this document?

What is their attitude to the subject? Are they resistant?

 Level of education

Possible reactions

Knowledge base

Their needs

Professional experience

Their attitudes

Their job and

Political, social, economic,

responsibilities

Personal habits
Cultural characteristics
Their interests

religious, linguistic,
technological
understandings

 To instruct
To inform
To persuade

Key Questions regarding your document

What, exactly, do you want your document to achieve?

What do you want your reader to know?
What do you want you reader to do?

You work for the municipal water

department providing safe, clean
water by reverse osmosis ltration to a
small community of 12,000 people one
hour northwest of Toronto.
Due to your technical knowledge and
expertise, your manager has asked you
to draft a letter that will be sent to
every house in the community
explaining that while the tap water
may taste and smell bad, it poses no
threat to peoples health.

Does this scenario remind

you of anything?

Arrange yourselves in small groups (2 to 4 per group)

Work together but submit individual answers

List three (3) characteristics of your audience based on

what you can infer from the scenario

THEN, briey identify how each observation about the

audience will aect your construction of your message
Consider how your understanding of your audience shapes
the message you deliver to them

Change the level of the

information you include

Focus on sentence clarity and

economy

Change the organization of

your information or degree of
background information

Provide cross-references for

important information

Consider information hierarchy

Use other methods in

conjunction with copy/text to
convey your meaning

Add examples or change the

level of your examples

Add supplementary
information needed to
understand your document

Omit information your readers

do not need

Source: Mary Ellen Guffey

Content
What is included
Degree of detail
Background and
denitions

Style/Tone
Language level
Voice
Sentence Length

Layout and
Illustrations
Use of colour,
graphics, white
space
Use of charts, maps,
graphs, photos

 Je nai fait celle-ci plus longue que par ce

que je nai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus

courte

I have only made this letter rather long

because I did not have the time to make it

shorter

- Blaise Pascal, Dec. 14, 1656

Ernest Hemingway

 Communication Theory
Audience Analysis
Adapting to Audience

Communication Barriers
Next Week

Source: http://www.mysticmadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Examples-Of-
Communication-Barriers.jpg

 Any applicant for the position of reman

must submit a medical report signed by

his physician.

Applicants for re-ghter positions must submit

medical reports signed by their physicians.

OR

Any applicant for the position of re-ghter must

submit a medical report signed by his or her
physician.

 Every engineer is entitled to see his

personnel le.

Some engineering positions involve physically

demanding work that can be challenging for old
people.

Our consulting rm is represented by a

businessman, a lady doctor and a female
engineer.

Our colleague in the Electrical Engineering

Department suers from cerebral palsy.

Dr. Abrams is conned to a wheelchair.

Antonio is an accomplished and well-respected

Italian civil engineer.

 Communication Theory
Audience Analysis
Adapting to Audience
Communication Barriers
Next Week

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/16/striking-photographs-of-tragedy-in-shallow-waters-as-the-costa-concordia-sinks/

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/16/striking-photographs-of-tragedy-in-shallow-waters-as-the-costa-concordia-sinks/

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/16/striking-photographs-of-tragedy-in-shallow-waters-as-the-costa-concordia-sinks/

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/16/striking-photographs-of-tragedy-in-shallow-waters-as-the-costa-concordia-sinks/

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/16/striking-photographs-of-tragedy-in-shallow-waters-as-the-costa-concordia-sinks/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71AuW7kHQsY#t=144

 Read Chapter 4 in textbook

The Art of Rhetoric & Persuasion
Introduction to Assignment #1