If you’re a writer, you must know and write with your audience in mind. That doesn’t mean gather intimate details on everyone reading what you write. It does mean you shouldn’t get into technical details if you’re addressing a general knowledge-based readership, or vice versa.
Too often, writers don’t think through “who” they are communicating with. Sometimes you must craft specialized messages that only attract a few select readers. You need to get them an urgent message. At other times, you want to hit as many people as possible, so you paint in broad strokes.
Several years ago, one of our senior leadership team asked me to write a letter of recommendation for a colleague who was applying to an Assistant Chief of Police position in a neighboring community. I worked on issues regularly with police departments and understood the language and tone they used when communicating. Instead of approving of the way I wrote the letter, I was criticized for not making our senior leader sound smart enough.
The chief receiving that letter would not care about how “smart” the recommender was. He would want to hear about the character, attitude, beliefs, leadership and policing tactics of the individual applying. That’s what we needed to lay out in the letter, and ultimately it was not the path we took.
I don’t know if the guy got the job. I did learn that people sometimes write letters that are inappropriate to the audience. Don’t let that be you.
Too often, writers don’t think through “who” they are communicating with. Sometimes you must craft specialized messages that only attract a few select readers. You need to get them an urgent message. At other times, you want to hit as many people as possible, so you paint in broad strokes.
Several years ago, one of our senior leadership team asked me to write a letter of recommendation for a colleague who was applying to an Assistant Chief of Police position in a neighboring community. I worked on issues regularly with police departments and understood the language and tone they used when communicating. Instead of approving of the way I wrote the letter, I was criticized for not making our senior leader sound smart enough.
The chief receiving that letter would not care about how “smart” the recommender was. He would want to hear about the character, attitude, beliefs, leadership and policing tactics of the individual applying. That’s what we needed to lay out in the letter, and ultimately it was not the path we took.
I don’t know if the guy got the job. I did learn that people sometimes write letters that are inappropriate to the audience. Don’t let that be you.
