NASA: Addressing Different Audiences . . .

When you begin writing, ask yourself, "Who is my audience?" In most cases, when you submit information to NASA's Earth Observatory web site, your audience will be one of the following

The following audience descriptions should help you better identify your audience members and their concerns.

To access any of the information on this page quickly rather than by scrolling down the page, click on the name of the type of audience you want to learn more about. You can then return to this point by clicking on any of the "return to top" links placed at the end of each section.

Scientific Researchers or Experts	Business Professionals	Educators
Media Specialists	General Readers

Content developed by Kelly Hall and web page by Kristi Barber, Summer 1998, as part of an SSAI/NASA research training grant.. Revised by Sherry Southard, Summer 2000.

Scientific Researchers or Experts

Scientific researchers (experts) are familiar with scientific and technical concepts and have advanced degrees in their field. Included in this category are engineers, professors, and industrial scientists, as well as many other science professionals. Their reason for reading is usually not personal, but rather a result of their desire to learn how and why things work.

Suggestions for Writing for Scientific Researchers or Experts

Include theoretical calculations and the results of research.
Report data and conclusions.
Use tables and graphs to help illustrate data.
Define only special and non-standard terms.
Include review of previous research when necessary.

Note: Keep in mind that even though all scientists and engineers are experts, they may not be a subject matter expert in your area of expertise.

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Business Professionals

Some of those who may be considered business professionals and executives are administrators, legislators, managers, supervisors, farmers, and high school principals. Many business professionals have a college degree, but limited scientific and technical experience. They are concerned about scientific and technological developments simply because of the effect on their company, community, or small business. Business professionals must make important decisions about finances and personnel based on the scientific and technical information the receive. The companies' bottom line (profits) is often behind what action they decide to undertake. Even decisions about employees and clients or users must be considered in terms of the employers' bottom lines.

Suggestions for Writing for Business Professionals

Focus on application rather than theory.
Report how the data affects the economy and community.
Report costs, alternatives, size of the project, and the amount of time until completion.
Define all scientific/technical terminology.
Give scientific/technical background information.
Include visuals such as charts, bar graphs, and pictures.

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Educators

Educators include all teachers from kindergarten to college, or simply anyone seeking to convey knowledge to students. Educators can be considered general readers in that they may have little or no scientific and technical experience. They are usually searching for interesting discoveries, data, or experiments to share with students in a classroom setting.

Suggestions for Writing for Educators

Use easily understood language.
Define all scientific/technical terminology and use that terminology only when necessary.
Provide scientific/technical background information.
Explain why the discovery or experiment is important for students.
Use plenty of appropriate visuals.
If possible, provide a lesson plan with instructions for an assignment.

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Media Specialists

Media specialists include those working for the media, such as news reporters and editors. Often with little or no scientific and technical experience, media specialists seek information that the general public will value and understand. They want newsworthy information about subjects such as scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, and new products.

Suggestions for Writing for Media Specialists

Use easily understood language.
Define all scientific/technical terminology.
Provide plenty of scientific/technical background information.
Explain the importance of the information and its effect on the public.
Give the source of the information.
Provide pictures/interviews to support the data.

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General Readers

From a salesman reading about El Nino's effect on the weather to a sixth-grader learning about California's crop-destroying medfly, general readers are persons encountering material outside their particular field of work or study. Encompassing a wide range of educational levels, they are the largest and possibly the most difficult audience to write for. To write for a general audience, you must first understand that general readers are interested in scientific and technical information on a personal level. How will this space discovery or medical breakthrough affect their lives?

Suggestions for Writing for General Readers or Lay Persons

Use scientific/technical terminology only if it is essential to the article and the readers understanding of the subject.
Instead use easily understood language and synonyms.
If scientific/technical terminology is used, define the term(s), provide background information, and use images your readers can identify.
To help explain unfamiliar concepts, use examples, as well as comparison.
Provide an appropriate context. Consider using narration.
For visuals, use only simple charts, bar graphs, and pictures.
Use active voice.

Be careful to use techniques indicated in the previous listing that increase the readability of scientific text for a lay audience:definition, examples, comparison, narration, and active voice. Many, if not all, of these techniques assist writers in producing interesting, comprehensible, and informative pieces.

Definition

Does the audience even need a particular term to understand content? Think about the knowledge, needs, and interests of your audience. Is the term absolutely essentially for the audience to learn or understand the information being conveyed? If so, the term must be defined, a synonym should be provided, and/or background information that helps place the word into context should immediately follow.

Rule: Only use a technical term or scientific jargon if it is absolutely essential to the article and the readers understanding of the subject and always provide definitions.

Suggestion: Instead of empty words to define a term, use images that your readers will identify with and will later remember when encountering the term again.

Samples

Nova, a star that becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades,.

A neutron star is the cinder of a burned out star.

Examples

You can use examples to provide an effective way to relate unfamiliar concepts to what readers already know, value and are interested in; however, these examples must be drawn from the reader' experience.

Suggestions: Your examples must logically support your point by representing the general class of items they're meant to illustrate.

Your examples should rhetorically support your point by being drawn from the knowledge and experiences of your audience.

Graphics, such as tables, line graphs, diagrams, and maps, can be used to illustrate important points as well as photographs and slides; however, just as with verbal examples, visual examples should be based on your audience's knowledge, interests, and values.

Samples

Humans are like ants, termites, bees, slime mold and fish, for these creatures all farm, raise food, launch armies into war, use sprays to confuse enemies, capture slaves and do everything but watch television.

Comparison

Comparison is a particularly useful techniques to explain concepts to non-specialists. Using this strategy, you indicate how a phenomenon is similar to or different from other phenomena the audience is more familiar with. Comparisons include synonyms, similes, analogies and metaphors.

Rules: Look for metaphors in the language, knowledge and experience of your audience. Don't just switch to other technical or scientific metaphors embedded in your field that the audience will not understand.

Use metaphors consistently. When you mix metaphors, you confuse readers and may introduce inconsistencies into your discussion.

Samples

Viruses dart like bees.

Mitochondria are responsible lodgers.

Narration

By creating a human story, you can enable an audience to identify with a scientific subject. Narration can make science accessible and acceptable to a general audience. Having an agent or agents completing actions increases the comprehensibility of your content.

Suggestions: To give the article authenticity, give details that explain exactly what's happening.

To help general readers remain involved, provide a dramatic plot complete with characters and "real-life" situations.

To exemplify a person-oriented approach to science, use personification by giving human qualities to non-human forms of life.

Samples

Cells walk through the park, sense, think and listen to music.

Idamae Garrott ran for the Maryland state senate in 1986. She was photographed inspecting a subway construction site, hard hat planted dashingly atop her grandmotherly white curls: conferring with constituents and strolling with husband Bill near their suburban home outside Washington, D.C. She won the election. But the campaign, with the endless talks before civic groups, the standing and walking for hours, the nights not home till midnight, was grueling. For years she'd suffered from arthritis, especially in the knees. Her walking was slow, limp-ridden, and sometimes painful ... but by the end of 1996, she was visited by new pain.

Active voice

Your writing will be direct and convey action if you use active voice, as opposed to passive voice. Passive voice is not the same as past tense which you must use to describe events that have already occurred. Active voice places the doers of action in the subject slot of a sentence, enabling readers to immediately "see" the content.

Linguistic markers of passive voice include

form of to be verb (is, was, were, been)
past participle form of verb which is usually marked by an "-ed" and sometimes by an irregular "-en"
often a "by" prepositional phrase that indicates the doer of the action.

"The man bit the dog" is active voice. "The dog was bitten by the man" is passive voice.

Joseph Williams in "Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace" explains very well active voice, as well as guidelines for using both active and passive voice.

Rule: Use active verbs to capture readers' attention and to increase comprehension.

Suggestion: Instead of having an object for a subject, use a human personality that is the subject of sentences (active voice). Readers will find this technique creates more interesting content that is less intimidating.

Sample

We noted that the rabbits, for all their display of good health, looked different and funny. Their ears, instead of standing upright at either side, rabbit-style, gradually softened and within a few hours collapsed altogether, hanging down like the ears of spaniels. A day later, they were up again.

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