Audience matters When you’re in the process of writing a paper, it’s easy to forget that you are actually writing to someone. Whether you’ve thought about it consciously or not, you always write to an audience: sometimes your audience is a very generalized group of readers, sometimes you know the individuals who compose the audience, and sometimes you write for yourself. Keeping your audience in mind while you write can help you make good decisions about what material to include, how to organize your ideas, and how best to support your argument. To illustrate the impact of audience, imagine you’re writing a letter to your grandmother to tell her about your first month of college. What details and stories might you include? What might you leave out? Now imagine that you’re writing on the same topic but your audience is your best friend. Unless you have an extremely cool grandma to whom you’re very close, it’s likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone. Isn’t my instructor my audience? Yes, your instructor or TA is probably the actual audience for your paper. Your instructors read and grade your essays, and you want to keep their needs and perspectives in mind when you write. However, when you write an essay with only your instructor in mind, you might not say as much as you should or say it as clearly as you should, because you assume that the person grading it knows more than you do and will fill in the gaps. This leaves it up to the instructor to decide what you are really saying, and she might decide differently than you expect. For example, she might decide that those gaps show that you don’t know and understand the material. Remember that time when you said to yourself, “I don’t have to explain communism; my instructor knows more about that than I do” and got back a paper that said something like “Shows no understanding of communism”? That’s an example of what can go awry when you think of your instructor as your only audience. Thinking about your audience differently can improve your writing, especially in terms of how clearly you express your argument. The clearer your points are, the more likely you are to have a strong essay. Your instructor will say, “He really understands communism—he’s able to explain it simply and clearly!” By treating your instructor as an intelligent but uninformed audience, you end up addressing her more effectively. How do I identify my audience and what they want from me? Before you even begin the process of writing, take some time to consider who your audience is and what they want from you. Use the following questions to help you identify your audience and what you can do to address their wants and needs. · Who is your audience? · Might you have more than one audience? If so, how many audiences do you have? List them. · Does your assignment itself give any clues about your audience? · What does your audience need? What do they want? What do they val ...

1. Audience matters
When you’re in the process of writing a paper, it’s easy to
forget that you are actually writing to someone. Whether you’ve
thought about it consciously or not, you always write to an
audience: sometimes your audience is a very generalized group
of readers, sometimes you know the individuals who compose
the audience, and sometimes you write for yourself. Keeping
your audience in mind while you write can help you make good
decisions about what material to include, how to organize your
ideas, and how best to support your argument.
To illustrate the impact of audience, imagine you’re writing a
letter to your grandmother to tell her about your first month of
college. What details and stories might you include? What
might you leave out? Now imagine that you’re writing on the
same topic but your audience is your best friend. Unless you
have an extremely cool grandma to whom you’re very close, it’s
likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms
of content, structure, and even tone.
Isn’t my instructor my audience?
Yes, your instructor or TA is probably the actual audience for
your paper. Your instructors read and grade your essays, and
you want to keep their needs and perspectives in mind when you
write. However, when you write an essay with only your
instructor in mind, you might not say as much as you should or
say it as clearly as you should, because you assume that the
person grading it knows more than you do and will fill in the
gaps. This leaves it up to the instructor to decide what you are
really saying, and she might decide differently than you expect.
For example, she might decide that those gaps show that you
don’t know and understand the material. Remember that time
when you said to yourself, “I don’t have to explain communism;
my instructor knows more about that than I do” and got back a
paper that said something like “Shows no understanding of
communism”? That’s an example of what can go awry when you

2. think of your instructor as your only audience.
Thinking about your audience differently can improve your
writing, especially in terms of how clearly you express your
argument. The clearer your points are, the more likely you are
to have a strong essay. Your instructor will say, “He really
understands communism—he’s able to explain it simply and
clearly!” By treating your instructor as an intelligent but
uninformed audience, you end up addressing her more
effectively.
How do I identify my audience and what they want from me?
Before you even begin the process of writing, take some time to
consider who your audience is and what they want from you.
Use the following questions to help you identify your audience
and what you can do to address their wants and needs.
· Who is your audience?
· Might you have more than one audience? If so, how many
audiences do you have? List them.
· Does your assignment itself give any clues about your
audience?
· What does your audience need? What do they want? What do
they value?
· What is most important to them?
· What are they least likely to care about?
· What kind of organization would best help your audience
understand and appreciate your?
· What do you have to say (or what are you doing in your
research) that might surprise your audience?
· What do you want your audience to think, learn, or assume
about you? What impression do you want your writing or your
research to convey?
How much should I explain?
This is the hard part. As we said earlier, you want to show your
instructor that you know the material. But different assignments
call for varying degrees of information. Different fields also
have different expectations. The best place to start figuring out
how much you should say about each part of your paper is in a

3. careful reading of the assignment. The assignment may specify
an audience for your paper; sometimes the instructor will ask
you to imagine that you are writing to your congressperson, for
a professional journal, to a group of specialists in a particular
field, or for a group of your peers. If the assignment doesn’t
specify an audience, you may find it most useful to imagine
your classmates reading the paper, rather than your instructor.
Now, knowing your imaginary audience, what other clues can
you get from the assignment? If the assignment asks you to
summarize something that you have read, then your reader
wants you to include more examples from the text than if the
assignment asks you to interpret the passage. Most assignments
in college focus on argument rather than the repetition of
learned information, so your reader probably doesn’t want a
lengthy, detailed, point-by-point summary of your reading
(book reports in some classes and argument reconstructions in
philosophy classes are big exceptions to this rule). If your
assignment asks you to interpret or analyze the text (or an event
or idea), then you want to make sure that your explanation of
the material is focused and not so detailed that you end up
spending more time on examples than on your analysis.
Once you have a draft, try your level of explanation out on a
friend, a classmate, or a Writing Center tutor. Get the person to
read your rough draft, and then ask her to talk to you about
what she did and didn’t understand. (Now is not the time to talk
about proofreading stuff, so make sure she ignores those issues
for the time being). You will likely get one of the following
responses or a combination of them:
· If your listener/reader has tons of questions about what you
are saying, then you probably need to explain more. Let’s say
you are writing a paper on piranhas, and your reader says,
“What’s a piranha? Why do I need to know about them? How
would I identify one?” Those are vital questions that you clearly
need to answer in your paper. You need more detail and
elaboration.
· If your reader seems confused, you probably need to explain

4. more clearly. So if he says, “Are there piranhas in the lakes
around here?” you may not need to give more examples, but
rather focus on making sure your examples and points are clear.
· If your reader looks bored and can repeat back to you more
details than she needs to know to get your point, you probably
explained too much. Excessive detail can also be confusing,
because it can bog the reader down and keep her from focusing
on your main points. You want your reader to say, “So it seems
like your paper is saying that piranhas are misunderstood
creatures that are essential to South American ecosystems,” not,
“Uh…piranhas are important?” or, “Well, I know you said
piranhas don’t usually attack people, and they’re usually around
10 inches long, and some people keep them in aquariums as
pets, and dolphins are one of their predators, and…a bunch of
other stuff, I guess?”
Sometimes it’s not the amount of explanation that matters, but
the word choice and tone you adopt. Your word choice and tone
need to match your audience’s expectations. For example,
imagine you are researching piranhas; you find an article in
National Geographic and another one in an academic journal for
scientists. How would you expect the two articles to sound?
National Geographic is written for a popular audience; you
might expect it to have sentences like “The piranha generally
lives in shallow rivers and streams in South America.” The
scientific journal, on the other hand, might use much more
technical language, because it’s written for an audience of
specialists. A sentence like “Serrasalmus piraya lives in fresh
and brackish intercoastal and proto-arboreal sub-tropical
regions between the 45th and 38th parallels” might not be out of
place in the journal.
Generally, you want your reader to know enough material to
understand the points you are making. It’s like the old
forest/trees metaphor. If you give the reader nothing but trees,
she won’t see the forest (your thesis, the reason for your paper).
If you give her a big forest and no trees, she won’t know how
you got to the forest (she might say, “Your point is fine, but

5. you haven’t proven it to me”). You want the reader to say,
“Nice forest, and those trees really help me to see it.”
Reading your own drafts
Writers tend to read over their own papers pretty quickly, with
the knowledge of what they are trying to argue already in their
minds. Reading in this way can cause you to skip over gaps in
your written argument because the gap-filler is in your head. A
problem occurs when your reader falls into these gaps. Your
reader wants you to make the necessary connections from one
thought or sentence to the next. When you don’t, the reader can
become confused or frustrated. Think about when you read
something and you struggle to find the most important points or
what the writer is trying to say. Isn’t that annoying? Doesn’t it
make you want to quit reading and surf the web or call a friend?
Putting yourself in the reader’s position
Instead of reading your draft as if you wrote it and know what
you meant, try reading it as if you have no previous knowledge
of the material. Have you explained enough? Are the
connections clear? This can be hard to do at first. Consider
using one of the following strategies:
· Take a break from your work—go work out, take a nap, take a
day off. This is why the Writing Center and your instructors
encourage you to start writing more than a day before the paper
is due. If you write the paper the night before it’s due, you
make it almost impossible to read the paper with a fresh eye.
· Try outlining after writing—after you have a draft, look at
each paragraph separately. Write down the main point for each
paragraph on a separate sheet of paper, in the order you have
put them. Then look at your “outline”—does it reflect what you
meant to say, in a logical order? Are some paragraphs hard to
reduce to one point? Why? This technique will help you find
places where you may have confused your reader by straying
from your original plan for the paper.
· Read the paper aloud—we do this all the time at the Writing
Center, and once you get used to it, you’ll see that it helps you
slow down and really consider how your reader experiences

6. your text. It will also help you catch a lot of sentence-level
errors, such as misspellings and missing words, which can make
it difficult for your reader to focus on your argument.
These techniques can help you read your paper in the same way
your reader will and make revisions that help your reader
understand your argument. Then, when your instructor finally
reads your finished draft, he or she won’t have to fill in any
gaps. The more work you do, the less work your audience will
have to do—and the more likely it is that your instructor will
follow and understand your argument.
Advancing CQ – Cultural Intelligence
How much do you care?
What do you need to know?
What’s your strategy - your plan of engagement?
What behaviors will you adapt?

7. Livermore, D. (2010). Cultural Intelligence. New York:
AMACOM
1
What do you need to know?
Introduction and greetings – forms of address, business card
presentation
Etiquette – entertainment & gifts
Teamwork
Email, telephone, letter, memo modes of communication
Ethics
Color
Hand gestures
Symbols
Punctuation marks
What do you need to know?
In order to advance in your ability to relate to others of a
different culture, dive into understanding more about the other
group. Here is few items that are important to understand.

8. Introduction & greetings. Some groups shake hands, some
groups bow and other kiss on the cheek. Still others greet one
another with prayer hands and the word “Namaste.’ Know what
is the appropriate greeting or you risk putting someone in
awkward feelings.
Etiquette – gift giving and eating behaviors are very important.
Know what is customary.
Learn what is appropriate collaboration behaviors.
Learn the customary email telephone letter memo modes of
communication
Understand that there are ethical differences in group – what is
acceptable in one group is not acceptable in another. Find out
the differences.
Color has different meaning.
Hand gestures & symbols have different meanings.
And punctuation marks are different in languages. Know these
differences – they impact your relationships.
2
What do you need to know?
Event Time vs. Clock Time
High Context vs Low Context
Individualism vs Collectivism
Low vs High Power Distance (status)
Low vs High Uncertainty Avoidance (uncertainty)
Physical distance
Touching
Eye contact
Review Hofstede’s website as well.

9. Event time vs Clock time. What is considered on time in that
culture? What is late?
High context or low context – how much detail is delivered in
that culture?
How important is status and hierarchy? It is easy to cause a
threat situation if you don’t understand the rules of authority.
What is the uncertainty avoidance. Some cultures are higher;
some are lower.
And, physical distance, touching rules and eye contact all have
their differing rules.
It’s up to you to learn about the cultures that you experience or
want to experience.
3
What behaviors will you adapt?
Learn a foreign language
Movie
Go to ethnic grocery store s and restaurants
Friend someone different than you
Adapt a zero-tolerance for stereotypes, bad jokes, slurs, etc.

10. Be a compassionate observer
What will you do? I am sure you can thinking of lots of fun
ways to enhance your cultural intelligence? I would like to see
you be the one to better our ability to business in a global
marketplace.
4
This article is a preview to your research assignment
Three Keys to Getting an Overseas Assignment Right
Principle 1: Establish the Family Foundation First
Principle 2: Build Credibility and Openness from the Start
Principle 3: Get Serious About Compliance

11. What lessons did you glean from the article? By thinking about
this a little more you will make your upcoming work a little
easier.
Principle 1
Be honest with your family members. Don’t glorify the
experience, it’ll be tough too.
Identify your resources to help you get acclimated and adjusted.
Live as expat, if possible. An easier adjustment as some things
are familiar.
Maintain regular communication with colleagues, friends and
family back home. Maybe do a blog of your experiences.
Principle 2
Don’t start with ‘here’ what’s wrong here.’
Ask lots of questions. Don’t tell
Go to the front lines right away – before setting up your office.
And…really listen.
Take stock of personal stereotypes – cultural, and
organizational
Get a cultural helpmate or two.
Craft a written plan for entry into the company

12. Principle 3
Systematically ask people on the front lines detailed questions
and move quickly with problems
Be able to differentiate between big or little problems – about
acceptable and unacceptable ways of doing business
5
Cultural Communication
Business Communication, MGT309
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Writing that Works (2010). Oliu, Brusaw, & Alred
Hi. Welcome to our lecture on Cultural Communication. As I
think about cultural communication, I first think of travel and
how much fun it is to experience something new. I imagine
most of you feel the same way. I hope that each of you take
advantage of the study abroad experiences that UNCG offers
you. So, let’s talk about the impact of culture on our
relationships and our communication. Remember, business is
relationships and the tool of relationships is communication.
I imagine you’ve heard the expression ‘the world is flat.’ That
reference simply means we are becoming more of one world,
one unit over the pieces and parts that separate us. Instead we

13. are becoming a single global society. Research states that
90% of leading executives from 68 countries named cross-
cultural leadership as the top management challenge for the next
century. We need give significant attention to this topic.
What is culture? Culture is our identity and our roles, and often
we don’t know the impact of it’s influence. Culture is defined
as the relatively specialized lifestyle of a group of people that is
passed on from one generation to the next through
communication, not through genes (DeVito, 2013).
Culture is everything that members of that group have produced
and developed-their values, beliefs, artifacts, and language;
their way of behaving; their art, laws, religion, and of course,
communication theories, styles, and attitudes. Think of it like
the water a fish swims in or perhaps the house we live in. It’s
all around us, influencing our thinking and behavior in every
moment. It affects our decisions – our work and our play. If
affects who influences us and who we influence. It is part of
our thinking and behaving.
1
We need to….
Understand our customers
Manage our personnel
Recruit talent
Have an adapting/open leadership style
Communicate respect at all times
70% of international ventures fail due to cultural differences

14. Doing business in another a culture outside of you own has
special challenges as we make lots and lots of unintentional
mistakes and alienate the people we in fact want to build
relationships with. 70% of international ventures fail due to
cultural differences.
The retail giant Wal-Mart, in Germany, is a good example of
this failure.
“After eight years of struggling in Germany, Wal-Mart sold it’s
eighty-five stores there. Many journalist have theorized about
what led to Wal-Mart’s failure given the company’s wild
success at home, but it’s widely agreed that Wal-Mart’s primary
flaw was in ignoring the cultural differences between the USA
and Germany. The company tried to apply its USA success
formula to a German market without modifying it. Whether it
was the kinds of products offered, the way in which items were
displayed, or the policies used in the employee handbook, Wal-
Mart’s stint in Germany seems to be a case study of what
happens when greater attention isn't’ given to the powerful role
of culture. As a result, Wal-Mart filed a lost of USD of $1
billion.” Livermore, D. (2010). Cultural Intelligence. New
York, NY: AMACOM. p. 65
2
Is societal culture the same or different from organizational
culture?

15. The answer is ‘yes.’ Each space, a society, a group, or an
organization, all have a unique energy with specific norms and
routines.
3
Clothes
Appearance
Ethnic Group
Energy
Behavior
Language choices
What We See
Think of an iceberg. It’s only the top that is visible while in
fact the entire iceberg is above and below the water – with the
largest part, the most impactful part, being what we cannot see.
But first let’s talk about the outside, what we can see.
We judge others in order to feel safe. We want to be able to
predict how they will interact with us. Our clothes tell a story,
our hairstyle and jewelry tell a story. Our face shows our
ethnicity. Our energy show our zest for life. Our behavior tells
how we think and what we believe to be important. And, our
language too is a reflection of how we think and what we
believe to be important. If you listen, really listen, to others
they tell you who they are.

16. So, the business and personal lessons is that you have to be
100% responsible for your first impressions, your personal
brand, and your professional brand. What your wear is as
important as what the internet says about you.
4
Ethnocentrism
Individualism or Collectivism
Associative or Abstractive thinking
Particular or Universal
Faith, facts or feelings
Values
Open or closed-minded
Relationship support
Personal biases
What We DON’T See
Our unconscious is more of our thinking and behaving than our
conscious. What we DON’T easily see is what is impactful to
our thinking and our behaving. And we have a tendency toward
ethnocentrism (an idea that our cultural values and beliefs are
far superior to other cultural values and beliefs) – what we
believe is good and valuable and important we project onto
others which is not always good thinking. Our nurture shapes
our thinking.
Let’s talk about some items involved in our perspectives to
others.

17. For example,
Are your individualistic or collective culture?. US citizens tend
to be individualistic and Asians are more towards collectivism.
An individualistic culture teaches members the importance of
individual values such as power, achievement, hedonism, and
stimulation (Ex: US, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Canada, New
Zealand, etc.). A collectivistic culture, on the other hand,
teaches members the importance of group values such as
benevolence, traditions, and conformity (Ex: Guatemala,
Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Indonesia, etc.)
Associative or Abstractive? Some people think in past
connection to past connections, others thinks in the abstract.
Particular or Universal? Particular is a person who believes
that personal relationships are more important than following
rules, an Universalist is the reverse rules first, people second.
Decision Strategies – faith, facts of feelings. Faith is using
one’s personal belief system. Facts is people who want to see
evidence. Feelings, the most common, go with their gut instinct
or use their brain limbic system.
Values – nurture (and then later choice) influences us to choose
the important. For example, some people care about neatness,
other’s don’t. I am sure you can think of examples too.
Are you (or they) open-minded, ready to listen to a differing
opinion/view. Or are you closed believing that your way is the
best and only?
Who do you rely on for support and advice? Support systems
swing thinking and behavior.
What are your (their) personal biases? Stereotyping and
narrow-mindedness affect our ability to relate with one another.

18. 5
Geert Hofstede – Dutch Researcher in the fields of
Organizational Studies (culture), and cultural economics and
management.
Pioneered the study of cultural dimensions.
http://geert-hofstede.com/
The man who put corporate culture on the map
Cultural Dimensions
Please review the cultural dimensions - Not only is it helpful to
this unit, but will assist you on your final research project.
6
CQ Scale – Personal Assessment
Take the personal assessment. Stop now and complete this
questionnaire. What did you learn about yourself and where can
you advance your cultural intelligence?

19. 7
Date: February 13, 2009
To: Business Communications Student
From: Student 2
Subject: Between Me and You…Audience-Centered Is the Key
The purpose of this memorandum is to prepare you for
Management 309 and the topic of audience-centeredness to
prevent the initial shock I experienced.
From the Beginning
While 6 weeks already passed in Professor Dianne Garrett’s
Management 309 class, I remember on day 1 she made a
promise that audience-centeredness is mentioned in every class.
So far, she’s kept her promise. When she first mentioned how
important it was, I thought she was just being a typical teacher,
but I am beginning to understand its importance. Here are 7
important topics about audience-centeredness that I have
learned so far.
1. Analyze the Audience – Right message to the right audience
spells success.
2. Get to the Point – People pay attention to interesting
subjects.
3. Be Picasso with Words – Audiences crave pictures.
4. Shorter is Better – Quality beats quantity.
5. Eliminate Jargon – People listen to what they understand.
6. Do the Work – Audiences respond when everything is done
for them.
7. Control is yours – How will you walk the little girl across the
street?
Analyze the Audience – Right message to the right audience

20. spells success.
“Zeroing in on the right audience with the right message is
frequently a formula for success…take the time to analyze your
audience formally and to revise your message with your
analysis in mind.” (Locker & Kienzler, 51) Understand what
matters most to the audience and focus on that. Establishing
common ground with your audience can be the difference
between
“Megan your hired” and looking for a different job.
Get to the Point – People pay attention to interesting subjects.
One important lesson Professor Garrett explained is the
audience responds better when they know what you are talking
about. “Your audience craves the meaning behind your ideas
before learning about the details. According to Medina, ‘This
comes directly from our evolutionary history. We didn't care
about the number of vertical lines in the teeth of the saber-
toothed tiger. We cared about whether it was going to clamp
down on our thigh. We were more interested in the meaning of
the mouth than the details’." (Gallo, 2008) Immediately state
what your purpose is and then expound on the details.
Be Picasso with Words – Audiences crave pictures.
Readers love to see a page that appears beautiful. Vary sentence
lengths to give different feels to the reader. Use vibrant words
to dazzle the reader with the English language. Just remember,
people pay attention to things that appear attractive.
Shorter is Better – Quality beats quantity.
Audience’s want rich context when they read. “Unnecessary
words increase writing time, bore you reader, and make your
meaning more difficult to follow.” (Locker & Kienzler, 119)
Strive to say 4 words when 4 are all you need.

21. Eliminate Jargon – People listen to what they understand.
Use common language with you and your audience so they
easily understand you. “Most employees, customers, and
investors hate confusing messages. They've been burned by dot-
com marketing hype, and they're skeptical of anything they can't
understand quickly and easily.” (Gallo, 2005) Jargon can seem
like a foreign language when it isn’t familiar to the audience.
Do the Work – Audiences respond when everything is done for
them.
Your requests will be approved more often when the audience is
required to do nothing. Give them all the information they need
to make an educated decision, as well as contact information to
reach you.
Control is yours – How will you walk the little girl across the
street?
In class, your given the example of writing is like walking a
little girl across the street. You are in control to lead that little
girl wherever you want to take her to get her from here to there.
It is the same in writing. You have the choice of how to present
to the audience the topics you choose to discuss. You can either
directly approach each topic and run across the street, or
indirectly push towards each topic as you and the little girl walk
across.