Your Task

Part of the Homework portion of your course grade

Analyze a real-world example of technical or professional communication to identify its audience and purpose. You will also evaluate how effectively the document meets the needs of its intended readers.

Find an example of technical or professional communication. Here are some examples:

• A user manual.
• A set of instructions.
• A government form or website.
• A business document.

You may find a document online or select one from your own experience. Don’st choose any document that I (Traci, your teacher) wrote. That ends up being awkward.

Review Markel & Selber Ch 5 for help with this project.

Assignment Learning Objectives

After working on this assignment, you should be able to:

• Identify the audience and purpose of a technical or professional document.
• Analyze how a document is designed to meet the needs of its intended audience.
• Evaluate whether a document successfully achieves its purpose.
• Begin thinking like a technical communicator by focusing on reader needs.

Success Tips

• Use the details in the “Determining the Important Characteristics of Your Audience’ section of the textbook to analyze your readers (Chapter 5, pp. 93–96).
• Include specific examples from your technical document to support your analysis.
• Write a short paragraph for your answers to questions 3–7. You can also use lists to organize the information.
• Pay attention to all the tips on Tengrrl’s Do’s & Don’ts for Workplace Writing page.

No Use of AI

Do not use AI on this activity.

The goal is to show you know how to identify strategies used to customize a document for its audience.

How You’ll Be Graded

Canvas will automatically give you credit for your submission.

I spot-check the work to ensure the grade is accurate.

If you shouldn’t have earned credit, I change the grade. This situation usually happens when answers are missing or incomplete. If time allows, I may ask you to try again.