# Writing for your audiences

Like any good design process, technical writing starts with really understanding
what your user needs.

For every audience, we want to understand:

* Their attitude: feelings towards content, you, role, organization
* Their values: what is important to your audience, what are their goals?

## Life pro tips

Don't be passive aggressive in your emails
Be calm when sending emails, not upset

# Example
You have accrued one more absence than number specified by syllabus, which means
you lose points.
What are your attitudes and values?

# Example
How to recruit a high school senior into my major

Attitudes
* Unsure about difficulty of major
* Unsure about job or graduate school prospects
* Excited to meet new people
* Unsure about how technical the major is
* Excited to learn new things
* Want to get an internship
* Want to work on new projects
Values
* Technical
* Systematic
* Systems-oriented

Move beyond the offering, and delve into the motivation

The audience is the center of every piece of communication we are conveying. Let
user needs inform your communication.