ETC5523: Communicating with Data

Workshop 2: One event, two audiences

Author

Michael Lydeamore

Published

1 February 2001

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

  • identify the audience and purpose of a message;
  • adapt the same event for two rhetorical situations; and
  • explain how audience changes language, detail and structure.
Sharing today

Your drafts remain private. At the end, you may share one sentence or discuss a writing choice without showing the underlying story.

1. Quickwrite: getting through (5 minutes)

Think of a time when a message was technically correct but still failed to get through. In private, write what the sender did, how the receiver interpreted it, and what might have helped.

2. Select an event (5 minutes)

Use an event from last week’s story, invent a new event, or use this supplied scenario:

At 8:45 am, a student enters a nearly empty computer laboratory. A water bottle has leaked beside a workstation. The computer is still running, the floor is slippery, and an assessment deadline is at 9:00 am.

You will communicate this event twice.

Version Audience Purpose
A A close friend Explain what happened and hold their interest
B University facilities staff Enable an appropriate and timely response

Before drafting, write what each audience probably knows, cares about and needs to do next.

3. Draft Version A (8 minutes)

Write 120–150 words for the close friend. You might use chronology, character, suspense or humour. Decide what can be implied because the audience knows you.

4. Draft Version B (8 minutes)

Write 120–150 words for facilities staff. Include the location, immediate risk, relevant observations and requested action. Put the most decision-relevant information early.

5. Rhetorical audit and revision (10 minutes)

For each version, annotate:

  • writer/ethos: how do you establish that the message is credible?
  • audience/pathos: what does this reader notice or care about?
  • message/logos: what information allows the message to make sense?
  • purpose: what should the reader know, feel or do?

Now revise the first sentence of each version so its purpose is apparent sooner.

6. Compare choices (6 minutes)

With a partner, discuss your decisions without needing to show the full drafts. You may share one sentence if you wish.

Consider what changed in:

  • order;
  • tone;
  • assumed knowledge;
  • amount of detail; and
  • explicit requested action.

7. Writer’s note (3 minutes)

Complete: “Changing the audience caused me to change… because…”