3.3 Tailoring to your audience

Figure 2

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Closeup image of the back of a woman giving a speech to a blurred audience, gesturing with her hand.

Figure 2

During the preparation time for your talk, you will need to spend some time researching your audience. You will need to gather basic facts about the people you are going to address. Essentially, who they are and why they are coming to listen to your talk.

You will also need to reflect on the aspects discussed in the previous section. You need to ask yourself how you will make yourself understood and you need to spend some time thinking about the level of your pitch, making sure it’s not too simplistic or too difficult.

Think about the aspects covered in the previous section (use of language, age, gender, culture, religion, affiliation and occupation) and ask yourself which are causing you the most concerns. How are you going to tackle these aspects in your talk?