To: Nancy Myers

From: Sarah Hauge

Date: April 22, 2020
Subject: APLED 121-Chapter 4 Summary

CHAPTER 4

AUDIENCE RECOGNITION

Audience Recognition - Consider your audience.

● Knowledge of Subject Matter - What do they already know, or not? Cater what you say
to encompass what they need to know for understanding.
○ High-tech Peer: High understanding of the subject/project. Share your
background/knowledge.
✓ Experts in the field being written about. (Jargon/acronyms ok)
✓ Minimal details or backstory for standard procedures.
○ Low-tech Peer: General knowledge of subject, but different area of expertise.
(bosses, coworkers, subordinates, colleagues from similar companies, etc)
✓ Familiar with subject, but not expert. Expect to have a peripheral
understanding. (minimal jargon, and define abbreviations)
✓ Define technical concepts.
✓ Provide background details about you or project.
○ Lay Audience: Completely uninvolved.
✓ Customer or clients who presumably have no understanding of the
subject matter.
✓ Instruct without patronizing, providing background details as appropriate.
○ Multiple audiences: Assume your correspondence could be passed along and
write accordingly.
✓ Could reference pages they can look at on their own time.

● Writing for Future Audiences: Some technical communications are archived, so make
sure a future reader knows what you are talking about as well.
Defining Terms for Audiences - Allows you to make your writing accessible to any audience.

● Parenthetically - CIA (Cash in Advance)

● In a Sentence - Including Term + Type + Distinguishing characteristics.
● Extended Definitions in One or More Paragraphs - Examples, Procedures, and
Descriptions.
● Glossary - Alphabetized list of terms after conclusion.
● Pop-Ups and Link with Definitions - (online uses)

Audience Personality Traits - Direction for tone, visual aids and writing style to get your
desired response from the audience.

Biased Language - Issues of Diversity - Commitment comes from feeling welcome or

respected.

● Diversity is protected by the law.

● Respecting Diversity is the right thing to do.
● Diversity is good for business.
● Diverse workforces keep business competitive.

Multiculturalism

● Global Economy - Many companies generate sales outside their home turf, increasing
sales opportunities and customer base.
○ Challenges - language consistency when translated, tone variance due to
translation, accuracy and usability issues after translation.
○ Multicultural Team Projects - Nuance of verbal and nonverbal cultural norms
must be observed.
● Cross-cultural Workplace Communication - writing and speaking between
businesspeople of two or more different cultures within the same country means you
must be aware of lost-in-translation instances.

Guidelines for Effective Multicultural Communication

● Define Acronyms and Abbreviations

 ○ This is especially important when the words in the acronym are specific to the
original language.
● Avoid Jargon and Idioms
○ When translated, these become very specific and no longer make sense in
context.
● Distinguish Between Nouns and Verbs
○ In English many words are both nouns and verbs, and your translation needs to
be clear.
● Watch for Cultural Biases/Expectations
○ Colors, animals, etc have different cultural relativity.
● Be Careful When Using Slash Marks
○ Could be “and”, “or”, or “and/or”…translations could mix up your intention.
● Avoid Humor and Puns
○ Another opportunity for Lost-in-translation nuance.
● Realize That Translations May Take More or Less Space
○ Paper, website, etc have specific character limits, and translation may increase
or decrease characters.
● Avoid Figurative Language
○ More lost-in-translation nuance.
● Be Careful with Numbers, Measurements, Dates and Times
○ Metric vs American
○ Month/Day vs Day/Month
○ 12 vs 24 hour, time zones, 6:15pm vs 18.15 vs 18h 15 denotations.
○ Also, work hours vary by country
○ For clarity avoid words like Yesterday, or Today
● Use Stylized Graphics to Represent People
○ People look different, don’t leave someone out unintentionally.

Avoiding Biased Language

● Ageist Language - “elderly” or “old folks”

● Biased Language About People with Disabilities - “handicap” creates negativity
● Sexist Language
○ Ignoring Women or Treating as Secondary
○ Stereotyping
 ○ Pronouns
○ Gender-Tagged nouns

Audience Involvement

● Personalized Tone - Companies don’t write to companies… people write to people

○ Pronouns - Omitting pronouns makes writing sound computer generated.
✓ you/you is preferred for the Reader.
✓ We/us/our for Group involvement
✓ I/Me/My is Writer’s involvement. Don’t overuse!
○ Names - Creates a friendly reading environment. If you know the reader well you
can use First Name, otherwise use Last Name to be sure not to offend.
● Reader Benefit
○ Explain the Benefit - Best done early to engage the reader, but done at the end
may leave a positive impression.
○ Use Positive Words - You lose when you attack the reader with negatives.

The Writing Process at Work

● Prewriting - Create the outline

● Writing - Write the piece.
● Rewriting - Allow someone to provide feedback on your rough draft and then amend
your writing as needed.