Communication Strategies

    The audience of a technical document plays an active role in determining the characteristics of the writing process as they act as receivers of the messages found in the document (vanAlstyne, 2005). The writer should move away from situations where readers are either confused because of the documents complexity or are insulted because of the shallowness of the written document (Myers, 2001). In developing a report that addresses a specific audience, it is important that the writer knows who the audience is, what their characteristics are, and what their needs could be in relation to the document.

    First, the writer must identify the intended audience. For technical reports, the business proposals are usually associated with entrepreneurs. However, assumptions based on common knowledge about technical documents may not suffice especially for situations when business proposals require the involvement of engineers and scientists for a complex project. In some instances, there may also be a combination of more than one group of audience based on their culture. In such situations, the technical writer should identify all possible audiences.

    Second, the writer must conduct an assessment of the audiences characteristics. If these are engineers, then they share a certain set of characteristics that would make writing a technical report of a building structure different when compared to that of a group of entrepreneurs. The characteristics of the audience would let the writer know the depth, quality, and kind of information that are needed for the paper. Likewise, there is also the need to distinguish the characteristics of the audience based on their nationality since not all may have the same educational curriculum, expectations, or technical know-how (Pringle  OKeefe, 2003).

    Lastly, the writer must also evaluate the needs of the audience in relation to the document and make sure that these are addressed. The needs of the audience translate to what they intend to see in the document. These things are what they usually look for or wants to know based on the report given to them. Thus, the writer must learn to identify and incorporate all of these in order to satisfy the audiences purpose for the document.