Transcript Overview of Chapter 4

PROFESSIONAL WRITING
NOTES TO ANDERSON, CHAPTER 4
DEFINING YOUR
COMMUNICATION’S OBJECTIVES
A communication’s objective is to lead readers to
respond in a specific way.
Three factors that influence a reader’s response:
• The reader’s purpose (in reading your
communication)
• The reader’s characteristics
• The context in which he or she will read
DEFINING YOUR
COMMUNICATION’S OBJECTIVES
Purpose
• Describe the task your communication will help the reader
perform
• Describe the way you want your communication to alter your
reader’s attitudes
Reader
• Describe your reader’s professional characteristics
• Describe your reader’s cultural characteristics
• Learn who all your readers will be
Context
• Describe the context in which your reader will read
• Identify any constraints on the way you write
PLANNING FOR USABILITY
Describe the task your communication will help your
reader perform
• What is your reader’s purpose for reading?
• What information does your reader want? (What
questions might your reader ask?)
• How will your reader use the information while
reading?
• How will your reader search for information?
WHAT INFORMATION DOES YOUR
READER WANT?
• Identify the information your readers need
What do they know?
What do they not know?
What do they need to know?
How much background information do I need to provide?
Are there special terms and/or procedures that I need to
explain?
• How can I avoid boring or confusing my reader with
distracting and unnecessary information?
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HOW WILL YOUR READER USE THE
INFORMATION WHILE READING?
• Organize your communication around your readers’ tasks
• In other words, focus on how they will use your information
• A trivial example: creating a flyer for an event
• Some common approaches
• Organize using hierarchies or groups
• Being explicit about the organizational structure
• Use headings and subheadings (perhaps with numbers)
• Use verbal cues to signal transitions between subsections (“While cost is a key
factor, a second factor, usability, is nearly as important . . .”)
• Being explicit about the main point (the “bottom line”)
• In academic writing we call this the “thesis” and usually “require” that it
appear early in a piece of writing
• Readers want to know why they are reading (what’s in it for them)
• Readers use this initial focus to make sense of their reading (“why is she telling
me this?” “why is this part here?” and so on)
HOW WILL YOUR READER SEARCH
FOR INFORMATION?
• Identify ways to help readers quickly find what they
want
• Table of contents, index, headings, subheadings
• Typographical conventions (different font sizes for different
level headings, boldface for new terms, and so on)
• Graphic elements as simple as lines, arrows, and boxes and
as complex as tables, pictures, and page design
• Verbal cues (transitions, topic sentences, parallelism, and so
on)
MAKE USE OF EXISTING TEMPLATES
• Technical and business communicators often use
templates or “superstructures” as a starting point.
• Templates, or superstructures, exist for many
common document types. You might be familiar
with these academic “superstructures”:
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The “English-class” essay
The five-paragraph essay
The lab report
The case study
The lesson plan
MAKE USE OF EXISTING TEMPLATES
• In the work world, common “superstructures”
include
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Project proposals
Audit reports
Research reports
Feasibility studies
Policies and procedures
User instructions
CONSIDER USING GRAPHICS
• Graphics can be a better choice for
communicating certain kinds of information
• For example
A picture can show how something looks
A flowchart can be used to describe a process
A diagram can show how something is assembled
A table can organize complex information making specific
information easy to find
• A chart or graph can visually represent the relationship
between data and show trends
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CONSIDER USING DESIGN ELEMENTS
• Design elements can help your reader use your
document
• For example,
• Boxes, lines, and shading can create visually distinct areas
for related information
• Type styles and sizes can communicate organization and
groups
GETTING STARTED?
• Some writers outline; others do not
• Some thought, reflection, planning, and research, though, are
always necessary
• Here are some strategies for getting started that you probably
already know:
• Assessing the Rhetorical Situation—audience, purpose, genre and
conventions (this has been our main focus)
• Brainstorming—thinking out loud in a group
• Listing—free association of ideas in point form
• Clustering—a visual form of listing
• Double-entry notebook—summary/response journal
• Freewriting—an attempt to tap unconscious knowledge
• Journalist’s Questions—who?, what?, when?, where?, why?, how?
• Outlining—informal or formal listing of ideas
• Scratch Outlines—like “listing” but with some attention paid to
sequence and subordination
GETTING STARTED?
• Here are some strategies for getting started that you
probably haven’t heard of yet:
• Classical
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ethos, logos, pathos (types of appeals)
topoi (topics of invention)
stasis (determining the issue)
dissoi logoi (arguing both sides)
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Act (What is happening?)
Agent (Who is doing it?)
Agency (What method?)
Purpose (What is the intent?)
Scene (Where?)
• Cubing—describe it, compare it, associate it, analyze it, apply
it, argue for or against it
• Dramatism (Burke’s Pentad)—heuristics to determine motive:
CHECK YOUR PLANS
WITH YOUR READERS
• Get feedback
• Incorporate user responses into your planning
and/or revision
• If possible, repeat the loop (i.e. get feedback again
and respond to it)