ABSTRACT
There are four points which you should communicate to a person reading or hearing an account of your research: what you did, how you did it, why you did it and what you found. A guiding principle is that you should express yourself in the clearest fashion possible for the medium you have chosen and for the audience which you can reasonably expect to be reading or hearing your account.
Four different audiences can be identified, each of which needs a different approach. Firstly, there is the general public, for whom you have to make the most concessions, explaining and modifying terminology and even simplifying the sentence structure. Secondly, there is the educated layperson, who will still need terminology explained. Thirdly, there is the person from the same discipline as you who may only need aspects of your particular area explained. Finally, there is the researcher in your area for whom you need make the fewest concessions.
