Avoiding Sexist Language in Writing Chapter 3 Weblink:Techniques for writing to a general audience
In few instances are writers asked to write exclusively for one gender or another as an audience. This article suggests strategies for making sure both genders feel included as readers.
Is Your Message Getting Through? Chapter 3 Weblink:Techniques for writing to a general audience
By WordsWork, a professional writing/consulting agency. This site discusses a general audience's reading level from a business marketing perspective.
Political Correctness furthers Social Distress Chapter 13 Weblink:Politically correct or necessary sensitivity?
Penn State college sophomore Joe Ramagli thinks that we are being too careful with our language. He voices an opinion popular among a wide range of people - that the constraining forces of "political correctness" have squelched expression. Do you think we have gone too far, or not far enough?
Broken Metaphor: The Master-Slave Analogy in Technical Literature Chapter 21 Weblink:How is technicality culturally situated?
This article traces the historical use of the "master-slave" metaphor in science and computer technology. Excerpts from interviews with professionals in science and technology fields depict various reactions to this terminology.
Risk Communication Chapter 22 Weblink:What level of technicality is culturally appropriate?
In a sense, any audience analysis is a cultural analysis, since we consider sets of knowledge, behaviors, thinking patterns, etc. of groups. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's document on effective risk communication has a rich discussion of different information needs of various stakeholders and discussion of adjusting technicality depending upon the needs of the particular group.
Audience and Tone
The University of Victoria's Writer's Guide operates this extensive site covering numerous aspects of essay writing. Though this selection focuses primarily on scholastic writing, it still provides a helpful discussion of audience awareness.
Informing Ourselves To Death: Neil Postman
The consistent skeptic, Postman argues with George Bernard Shaw that “all professions are conspiracies against the common folk,” preventing “outsiders from understanding what the profession is doing and why—and protect[ing] the insiders from close examination and criticism. Professions, in other words, build forbidding walls of technical gobbledegook. A paper presented to the German Informatics Society.
