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 Topic1:
Planning Ahead:
Know Your Audience and Consider Document Use
Before you pick up pen
or open a new document in Word, you will first have
to do some thinking. You have to think about your future
readers and consider how they want to use your document.
The ideas that are discussed in this topic will have
to be in the back of your mind all the time when you
are writing, in order to make sure your document will
be the most useful and meaningful for your readers.
In
this topic you will learn that you'll have to:
Plan
first before you write!
Make
sure you understand the goals you have for the document.
Also understand that you will write and then revise,
sometimes many times.
Consider
what you want your reader to know, do, or understand
In
general, there are three different types of informational
or instructional documents, depending on the purposes
of the reader. Your audience will be reading either
to learn something, to assess something, or to do
something. Generally, technical documents address
an audience who is reading to do something.
The
following table illustrates these three different
reasons a reader might have to read your document.
The table also briefly points out how your document
should be designed to meet these purposes.
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The reader is using the document
to
|
Example document
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Document Design
|
| Learn |
Project plan, or a description
of the Microsoft Agreement. |
Focus on major points and promote
associations. |
| Assess |
Proposal for a new
system, the description of supported software. |
Make it easy to summarize
and decide whether information will be useful. |
| Do something |
Description of a process, like
how to create a desktop icon. |
Highlight information for use on
the job. Illustrate step-by-step procedures. |
Think
about what your audience will expect.
Why will they read the document?
What kind of information would they like to find easily?
Which of the three types of documents is required?
Consider
your expertise
Do
you know your subject well enough for the type of
document you are developing? Only when you know your
subject well, can you explain it clearly and efficiently
to your audience.
Put
it all together— readability
"Readability"
is a term often used to describe the appropriateness
and usability of a document for a particular reader.
One
aspect of readability is grade level. Research tells
us that technical writing should aim at a range from
8th to 11th grade level. It
does not matter if your reader is capable of reading
very dense and difficult material. If you keep the
grade level at 8 to 11, your reader will thank you!
When people are reading to assess an issue or reading
to do something, what they require most is a straightforward
description of the issues or the steps to complete
a task.
You
can check the grade level of your document in Microsoft
Word.
- From
the Tools menu, select "Options".
- Check
"Show readability statistics" on
the Spelling and Grammar tab.
- Run
the Spelling and Grammar
checker and then view the Readability statistics,
which include the grade level of your document.
Of
course a grade level doesn't tell you everything
about the readability of your text, but at the least
it will give you something to work with. If the grade
level is high, try rewriting the sentences and see
if that helps. Read on in these materials to discover
other aspects of readability such as logical organization,
clear sentences, graphics and typography.
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