This week’s reading identified four main types of audiences that technical writers often need to address:
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- Experts
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- Technicians
- Executives
- Nonspecialists
For this discussion, review the characteristics of each audience type. Next, let’s examine these audience-types in the context of a professional healthcare environment.
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- Who are the experts, technicians, executives, and Non specialists that nurses most frequently communicate with? Come up with 1-2 examples for each type of audience.
- Which of these audience types do you think is easiest to communicate with as a nurse? Why?
- Which audience type seems most difficult to communicate with? Why?
- Finally, share one tip or strategy for effective communication with one of these audience-types.
Finding and understanding your audience is an important part of the writing process. We are going to be discussing that this week. This is a skill you will use throughout the rest of your career. Pay close attention this week. Think about it, if you are talking with a patient’s family you would talk differently than if you are talking with a doctor or other nurses. This process is analyzing your audience. It’s something you will need to learn to do quickly on the job.
In writing this knowing your audience helps to engage them in what you are writing about. It also helps you narrow your topic so that you are only writing what your audience will understand and relate with. This is the middle of this Venn diagram.
With all of this in mind, how do you find this middle ground? How do you know what to write and write what people want to read?