One point this chapter emphasized was the audience based orientation of technical/professional writing and the writer's responsibility to meet the values, needs, and expectations of the reader. I realize that there needs to be such a focus on the audience because the audience determines whether or not a technical piece of writing is successful. This relationship between writer and reader made me feel a bit intimidated. Then, the book used the term "audience advocacy" and this added a whole new dimension to my understanding of technical communication. Thinking of myself as an advocate and a writer, or someone who's advocating for a group of people through written language, I immediately saw the connection between writer and audience.
Another valuable point raised in this chapter was the importance of cultural awareness. "Socially constructed behaviors, values, and conditons" will vary greatly bewteen the targeted groups (audience), as well as within the groups. Investigating the values and outlooks of our audiences, which are unfamiliar to us, is necessary in order to obtain this cultural awareness. One question I have is: How exactly do we go about investigating cultural/sociological differences? I have ethnographic research in mind, but are questionarres also involved?
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