For example, will your document be read by someone trying to install some shelves? Employees of a certain company? Computer programmers trying to work out a bug in some new software? Consider why this audience will be reading your document. What task will it help them perform, or what do they need to know?
You will almost always want to ascertain your audience’s levels of knowledge about and interest in the topic. Depending on the audience, the situation, and the type of document you are preparing, there are many other pieces of information that might be valuable, such as where the audience is likely to read your document, and a variety of demographic factors such as age, gender, education, professional background, cultural background, and so on. [2] X Expert Source Janet PeischelDigital Media Expert Expert Interview. 30 March 2021. [3] X Research source
Sometimes, you may be able to find information that someone else has already collected in the form of surveys or marketing research that can stand in for collecting your own data.
Try to avoid creating questions that lead your participants toward a given answer, even if you think it is correct. For example: “Now that we’ve shown you how effective our product can be, how likely are you to buy it?” or “How do you feel about the president’s oppressive tax policies?” Avoid “double barreled” questions. Questions that ask about more than one thing at a time may confuse your participants or result in unreliable data. [4] X Research source For example, you shouldn’t ask: “How often do you read articles about science and share them with other people?” Instead, break this into two questions: “How often do you read articles about science?” and “How often do you share articles about science with other people?” If you use a survey, keep it as simple and short as possible. [5] X Research source
For example, if you think your audience is mostly women, try to select a sample that reflects that. Other characteristics that might be useful in selecting participants could be their occupation or employer (especially if you are writing something for people in a particular field), their ethnic backgrounds, the city or neighborhood in which they live, or their membership in a particular organization. Which characteristics are most important will vary based on the type of document you are producing and the audience you are hoping to reach.
If you are using a survey, you may want to let your participants remain anonymous, especially if you are asking them about anything sensitive or personal. This can lead to more honest responses. If you are interviewing participants in person, you may find it useful to ask clarifying questions or probe for more information by saying things like “can you tell me more about that?” or “tell me why you feel that way. " At the same time, how you conduct the interviews can affect how people answer your questions, so you’ll need to work hard not to show your own biases or make your participants feel like they should answer in a particular way. [6] X Research source For interviews or informal conversations, it’s often a good idea to record the conversation for later reference, if your participants agree to this. Never record anyone without their permission, as this may be a violation of state law.
If you need to conduct in-depth statistical analyses of your data, there are software programs that can help you, such as Stata or SPSS. These programs are costly though, and for most purposes, calculating simple percentages is more than adequate. Common applications like Excel can help you with organizing and analyzing your data. Putting your questions across the top row in a data sheet and then placing each participant’s responses in the rows below will allow you to quickly summarize the range of responses you got for each question. If your analytical tool used open-ended questions, i. e. questions that do not specify a limited range of possible answers (for example “How do you feel about Company X?”), you will probably want to classify people’s responses into categories (for example: “skeptical,” “hostile,” “uncertain,” or “positive”) so that you can summarize how large numbers of your participants responded (e. g. “the majority had a negative impression of Company X”).
The sample document at the top of this article is a good example of an audience profile.
If your audience will be reading your document while carrying out a task, a technical manual or instruction sheet made up of bullet points and possibly diagrams may be most effective. On the other hand, if you are hoping to inform professionals about new research in their field, an article or newsletter format might be best.
Outlines are also a good way of developing headings for the different sections in your document, which will be useful in helping readers identify the key pieces of information they are looking for.
For example, if your audience is highly educated and/or well versed in the topic you are writing about, the use of highly specific and technical vocabulary may be acceptable or even helpful. If your audience is not well informed about your topic, such language should be avoided. Likewise, if your audience is likely to be reading your work while carrying out a specific task or in a work environment with many distractions, the use of short, simple sentences is advisable. If they’ll be reading your work at home and giving it their undivided attention, varying sentence length and structure will make your writing more compelling and enjoyable.
