Employing Expert Writing Techniques to Adapt to Your Audience

Adapting your message to the task and audience requires empathy, which means putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Empathetic senders consider how the receiver will decode the message and try to find the most appealing tone and professional language to deliver the message.

Read the following message, and determine if it is sender focused or audience focused.

We want you to come back. If you are satisfied, you'll come back, and we will continue to be profitable. Tell us about your experience, so we can be the best.

Is the preceding message sender focused or audience focused?

• Audience focused
• Sender focused

Which of these selections effectively use the “you” view. Check all that apply.

• You are invited to take advantage of our professional development workshops.
• Thank you for your letter regarding your CRB2 home entertainment center.
• I'm requesting that all of our valued customers complete the customer satisfaction survey.
• We know you enjoyed your online shopping experience and will want to tell all your friends about it.

Which one of these selections uses a conversational but professional tone?

• GR8 news. The hag in marketing got fired.
• Due to increasingly present vicissitudes in the market, this writer will be employing several corrective actions.
• Janice, please implement the solution we discussed last week.

Determine which sentence has achieved a casual, yet professional tone.

• Let's meet at 1:00 today to review the report.
• There are errors in this report again. Please get to my office ASAP to discuss how to fix them!