Sep 27: Reader benefits, You-attitude, Positive emphasis, Audience

Assignments:

• Assignment 3: Informative and Positive Messages
• Assignment 4: Persuasive Message
  (FYI: the grading criteria attached to the end of each assignment follows the outline presented in the "Aspects..." handout.)
• Blog topic: give a brief example of a well written -OR- poorly written piece of communication that you've encountered at school or work.

Reader benefits

• Reader benefits are benefits or advantages that the reader gets by
  - using the writer's services,
  - buying the writer's products,
  - following the writer's policies,
  - or adopting the writer's ideas.
• Reader benefits can exist for policies and ideas as well as for goods and services.
• Reader benefits tell readers that they can do the job and that success will be rewarded.

Reader benefits

• Good reader benefits are adapted to the audience, based on intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivators, supported by clear logic and explained in adequate detail, and phrased in you-attitude.
• Extrinsic benefits simply aren't available to reward every desired behavior; further, they reduce the satisfaction in doing something for its own sake.

Create Reader benefits

• Identify the feelings, fears, and needs that may motivate your reader.
  Identify the features of your product or policy that could meet the needs you've identified.
• Show how the reader can meet his or her needs with the features of the policy or product.
• When you write to multiple audiences, use the primary audience to determine level of detail, organization, level of formality, and use of technical terms and theory.

You-attitude

• You-attitude is a style of writing that…
  — looks at things from the reader's point of view,
  —emphasizing what the reader wants to know,
  —respecting the reader's intelligence, and
  —protecting the reader's ego.

Talk About Audience, Not Yourself

• Tell how message affects the audience
• Don’t mention communicator’s work or generosity
• Stress what audience wants to know

Refer to Reader’s Request or Order

• Make specific references, not generic
• Name content of order for person or small business
• Cite purchase order numbers for customers that order often

Don’t Talk About Feelings

• Express your feelings to
  —Offer sympathy to audience
  —Congratulate audience
• Don’t talk about audience’s feelings
• Don’t predict audience’s response
• Give audience good news

In Positive Situations…

• Use 'you' in positive situations
• Avoid 'I' in printed text
• Avoid 'we' if it excludes the audience

Avoid 'You' in Negative Situations

• Protect audience’s ego
• Avoid assigning blame
• Use passive verbs
• Use impersonal style
• Talk about things, not people
• Apply you-attitude beyond the sentence level by using organization and content as well as style to build goodwill.

Positive Emphasis

• Positive emphasis means focusing on the positive rather than the negative aspects of a situation.
• Avoid negative words and words with negative connotations.
• Focus on what the reader can do rather than on limitations.
• Justify negative information by giving a reason or linking it to a reader benefit.
• If the negative is truly unimportant, omit it.
• Put the negative information in the middle and present it compactly.

The desirable tone for business writing is…

• businesslike but not stiff,
• friendly but not phony,
• confident but not arrogant,
• polite but not groveling.

The following guidelines will help you achieve the tone you want:

• Use courtesy titles for people outside your organization whom you don't know well.
• Be aware of the power implications of the words you use.
• When the stakes are low, be straightforward.
• When you must give bad news, consider hedging your statement.
• Writing should be free from sexism in four areas: words and phrases, job titles, courtesy titles, and pronouns.

Positive emphasis

• Ms. is the nonsexist courtesy title for women. Whether or not you know a woman's marital status…
  —Use Ms. unless the woman has a professional title or …
  —unless you know that she prefers a traditional title.
• Traditional pronouns are sexist when they refer to a class of people, not to specific individuals...

Four ways to make the sentence nonsexist are to

1. use plurals (“people go…, “managers talk…”)
2. use ‘you’ (“you may consider…”)
3. to revise the sentence to omit the pronoun
4. to use pronoun pairs (“men and women…, “she and her team…”)

Bias-free language

• is fair and friendly;
• it complies with the law.
• It includes all readers;
• it helps to sustain goodwill.

Check to be sure that your language is nonsexist, nonracist, and nonagist.

• When you talk about people with disabilities or diseases, use the term they prefer.
• When you produce newsletters or other documents with photos and illustrations, picture a sampling of the whole population, not just part of it.

Audience

• The primary audience will make a decision or act on the basis of your message.
• The secondary audience may be asked by the primary audience to comment on your message or to implement your ideas after they've been approved.
• The initial audience routes the message to other audiences and may assign the message.
• A gatekeeper controls whether the message gets to the primary audience.
• A watchdog audience has political, social, or economic power and may base future actions on its evaluation of your message.

Common sense and empathy are crucial to good audience analysis.

The following questions provide a framework for audience analysis:

Six Questions to Analyze Audiences

1. How will audience react at first?
   —Will they see message as important?
   —What is their experience with you?
2. How much information do they need?
   —What do they already know?
   —Does their knowledge need to be updated?
   —What do they need to know to appreciate your points?
   —Six Questions to Analyze Audiences
3. What obstacles must you overcome?
   —Is audience opposed to your message?
   —Will it be easy to do as you ask?
4. What positives can you emphasize?
   —What are benefits for audience?
   —What do you have in common with them?
   —Experiences – Interests – Goals – Values
   —Six Questions to Analyze Audiences
5. What does audience expect?
   —What writing style do they prefer?
   —Are there red flag words?
   —How much detail does audience want?
   —Do they want direct or indirect structure?
   —Do they have expectations about length, visuals, or footnotes?
   —Six Questions to Analyze Audiences
6. How will audience use document?
   —Under what physical conditions will they use it?
   —What purpose will document serve?
   —Reference
   —Guide
   —Basis of lawsuit
   

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Content attributed to Locker, Kitty O. and Donna Kienzler. Business and Administrative Communication, 8/e. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. 2008.

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