Who are your readers, and what is your goal when writing to them?
If you are sending an email to colleagues, writing a letter to potential customers or creating a presentation, Ann Kepler, publisher at Adams Press, offers direction.
“Start by identifying your target market. Why does it need or why would it be interested in your information,” Ann says. “Assume the role of the reader. Make sure your point is clear and engages the recipient with personal relevance and newsworthiness. Don’t make your reader work to learn why your writing is worth reading. You do the work, and the reader does the reading.”
Whether you copy an email to others or your recipient forwards it, your words and style may assume a life of their own…forever.
Thus, when writing, particularly in a business context, Ann reminds you to “speak in a consistent voice, check grammar and spelling, use transitions to guide readers through, and remember parallel construction. That is, parts of a sentence should be similar in form and style. My list of the instructions in the first sentence of this paragraph, for example, is parallel in construction.”
Another challenge may arise when you identify your reader. “When I work with physicians writing patient education materials, I often find two readers, a doctor and a patient,” says Ann. “The writing must be medically accurate to satisfy the doctor and also be accessible for the lay reader. This requires both a professional style and an informative voice.”
On the other hand, if you are writing to friends or family, or you are a columnist with a unique voice or perspective, you can communicate in your first person voice and style. Just keep writer/reader goals and interests in mind.
I have to remember this when writing a blog post. What do I want to share with readers, how do I want to say it, and do readers want to know it?
Great advice. Indeed your writing or any communication you project is an extension of yourself and should be presented with care. Also being aware that your content addresses the needs of both the informed and the uninformed. I notice that often inexperienced writers think they have communicated their topic because in their mind they have filled in all of the gaps. They do not take into account the reader who does not come to the piece with all of the insight and knowledge of the composer.
Thanks, Reno, for your perceptive feedback.