Teaching Audience in Technical Communication
http://www.stc.org/confproceed/1993/PDFs/PG248251.PDF

Samson, Donald C., Jr.
STC Proceedings
1993

Abstract:

Teaching technical writing students how to communicate with the different audiences of technical documents requires defining those audiences. Traditional division of audiences by educational level or job function fails to consider the readers’ familiarity with the subject and their interest in it. This paper sets up three categories of audience (lay, middle, and expert) and suggests how to communicate effectively with each, to help students prepare to create documents designed for different audiences.