Markel Chapter's 5 and 6

Markel’s chapter 5 is about analyzing your audience and purpose. It is also important to determine the characteristics of your audience. Characteristics like the reader’s education, his/her professional experience, job responsibilities, personal characteristics, personal preferences, and finally cultural characteristics. There are also questions that one should keep in mind like, who is the reader, why is he/she reading your document, what could be their attitude and expectations towards this document, and finally how will the readers use this document?

There are many techniques that can be used to learn more about your audience. There is the option of interviewing, research on the web, reading previous documents that have been written by your readers and asking questions. All these will give you a better idea of their expectations and standards. Another part that is important is communication across cultures, overseas with people of different languages. Effective communication requires understanding of a certain culture, their beliefs attitudes, and values.

Now chapter six in Markel’s book talks about researching your subject. There are two kinds of research methods however you usually will use both of them when ever doing any research. First is primary research which involves creating technical information yourself. Second one is secondary research which is collecting and using information others have already discovered or created. Also there is academic research which helps answer scholarly question and workplace research which helps answer practical questions.

It is important to understand the research process, if done correctly this process can be very effective and efficient. First comes analyzing your audience, followed by the purpose and subject. Then comes visualization and delivery method follow by schedule and budget for the project. Then you need to ask yourself few questions, like which information do I want to present or which ones I don’t? Always good to ask questions and conduct secondary research. Finally you want to evaluate the information that has been gathered and do more research if necessary.