English Midterm

End goal of communication

- As a cyclical exchange of messages, the goal of communication is to ensure that you've moved an idea in your head into someone else's head so that they understand your idea as you understood it

Troubleshoot communication errors by breaking down the communication process into its component parts

- Conflict, damaged relationships, and animosity within an office and lost business with clients - Productivity lost and resources wasted fixing problems that could have bee avoided with proper communication - Inefficiency in taking much longer to do tasks easily completed with better communication, leading to delays and missed deadlines - Missed opportunities - Unmet objectives due to unclear or shifting requirements or expectations

Explain the importance of studying communications

- English courses are an important step towards professionalizing you for entry or re-entry into the workforce - Brings your communication skills up to the professional level - How well you communicate determines your level of professionalism - A well-written email has the same effect as a nice suit worn in an office - Customers, managers, co-workers tend to judge the quality of a person's general competence by the quality of their writing

Barriers to effective listening

- If you don't actively listen to what your customers or managers say they want, or fail to piece together what they don't know they want from their description of a problem they need solved, then you may just find yourself always passed over or advancement

Unethical Communication Examples

plagiarism sending out essential information selective misquoting misrepresenting numbers distorting visuals failing to respect privacy or information security needs

comparison of direct and indirect messages

- Indirect is longer because it takes more care to frame and justify the bad news, starting with an opening that attempts to win over the reader's agreement by appealing to their sense of reason - Direct approach, the bad news is delivered concisely in blunt words suchs as "cutting" and "shutting", which get the point across economically but suggest cruel aggression with violent imagery - Indirect approach makes the bad news seem quite good with positive words like "improve," "streamlining," and "strengthening."

employing active listening strategies

- Making ourselves aware of our own listening habits and actively seeking to improve them - If your problem is that your mind wanders, you must train yourself to focus on the message at hand rather than consume other media in a failed effort to multitask or get distracted by the internal monologue that tries to whisk you away from the present - Work on being present - Take earbuds out and keep your cellphone in your pocket when someone is talking - Maintain strong eye contact with the speaker to show active interest - Resist the social anxiety-driven urge to avert your eyes as soon as pupil-to-pupil contact lasting more than a second or two make the human connection too real for comfort - Devote your brains full processing power to the message at hand (paraphrase the message in your own words), then ask speaker if you understood correctly - Think of questions you can ask for clarification - Figuring out when to talk and when to listen also require social skills

Select and use common, basic information technology tools to support communication: Identify common technology tools used to support communication

- Messaging - Email - Telephone - Face to face - Other - Web live chat - Mail

Distinguish between personal and professional uses of technology

- Personal 18-24 years old is by text or instant messaging, followed closely by email, 31% Face-to-face interaction, is preferred by only 6% of respondents - Professional Face-to-face communication; developing conversational skills throughout this decade is hugely important by the time they enter a workforce mostly populated by the older generation that grew up without smartphones, developed those advanced conversational skills the hard way by making mistakes and learning from them

Distinguish between the nature of English and Communications Courses

- Practice of interacting with others in the workplace and other professional context - Every job from A - Z requires you to communicate with people - You won't talk the same way to your customer or client the same way you'll talk to a co-worker - English classes move away from English fundamentals (grammar, punctuation, spelling, style)

Effective listening strategies

- Use your senses of hearing, vision, and even touch, taste, and smell to understand messages in whatever channels target those senses - Active listening and reading nonverbal social cues are vitally important to understanding messages, including subtext - that is, significant messages that are not explicitly stated by must be inferred from context and nonverbals Reading between the liens

Identify techniques for adjusting writing style according to audience size

- how big is your main audience? Is it one person, two, a few, several, a dozen, dozens, hundreds, or an indeterminately large number - Must adjust your writing style to accommodate a larger audience. - When in a group of 3-4 address them each by name, either in alphabetical order or in order of who is primarily involved and then descending in size of contribution - 4+, however, you may start to use collective salutations such as "Hello, team" - Larger the group, however, the more general and accessible your language has to be - When writing for an indeterminately large group such as the consumer public, say in a blog on your company's website, your language must be as plain and accessible as possible

Identify techniques for adjusting writing style according to knowledge of topic

- how much do you already know about the topic of my message? - Whenever sharing information it's good to gauge approximately how much your audience knows about the topic you're writing about so that you provide no more and no less information than is necessary - When dealing with professional situations, they're busy and don't have time to read any more than they need to.... If you over explain a topic in an email, you make the double mistake of wasting the readers time and insulting them by presuming their ignorance.... You'll get on their bad side, this becomes a triple mistake considering the time you wasted in writing more than you had to. - On the other hand, writing too little because you've incorrectly assumed that your audience knows what you know also inconveniences them and maybe puts you on their backlist - A lack of necessary information in a message ultimately leads to either errors due to confusion or wasted time from having to response with request for clarification or, worse, damage control because your reader acted on misunderstandings resulting from your miscommunication; either way, the goal of communication isn't met by the message - If you email an older client describing a procedure for how to connect with you by video conference using a favourite online application by omit mention of your correspondent needing to download software from the application website prior to the conference calls - Appropriately gauging your audience's level of knowledge extends to the language you use - Besides using plain language, effective document can also help aid understanding for those who may have difficulty with reading comprehension, as well as for those who are competent professionals but are just busy - When explaining a procedure, for instance, using a numbered list rather than a paragraph description helps the reader skim to find their spot when going back and forth between your instructions and performing the procedure itself - Bolded headings and subheadings are discreet topics within a document also help orient readers looking for specific information.

Identify techniques for adjusting writing style according to position relative to you

- what is my professional or personal relationship to them relative to their position/seniority in their organization's hierarchy? - Consider your relationship to the audience and their position - Just as you might wear your best clothes for an important occasion like a job interview or wedding, you much respectfully elevate the formality of your language depending the perceived importance of the person you're communicating with - Remember that when writing to your manager, remember that it will be closely read by many people, be more careful to write in a professional style and fully proofread your email than you would if you we're just writing to a co-worker - Employers or clients are judgmental and will pigeonhole you as sloppy and careless about details if you send them a poorly written email, whereas all employers want to see that their employees are detail-orientated for the money they're paying them - You don't want to embarrass yourself and lose out on professional opportunities with glaring writing mistakes that more thorough proofreading could have caught - Formality in writing also involves carefully selecting words that are slightly fancier than the colloquial "informal" words you would normally use in everyday situations When writing someone higher up you should use slightly fancier words along the formality spectrum, yet not so fancy as to come off as pretentious and trying to make them feel stupid by forcing them to look them up in the dictionary

Positive Image through email

- write an informative subject line - subject lines shoulder be written in title case - respectful salutation (hello, good afternoon, dear) - complimentary closing (regards, thanks, respectfully, sincerely) - plan before writing - resect confidentiality - never email angry (shea netiquette) - proofread with care

three part organized structure

1. Attention-grabbing opening - The job of the opening is to hook the reader in to keep reading, capturing their attention with a major personal takeaway (answering the readers question "what's in it for me?" or the main point (thesis) of the message - In longer messages, the opening includes an introduction that establishes the frame in which the reader can understand everything that follows - This accommodates the primacy effect in psychology, which is the first impressions tend to stick in our long-term memory more than what follows, whether those impressions are of the people we meet or the things we read - Your first sentence and paragraph must represent the overall message clearly 2. Detail-packed body - the message body supports the opening with further detail supporting the main point - body may include: evidence in support of a thesis, background for better understanding, detailed explanations and instructions, convincing rationale in a persuasive message, plot and character development in and entertaining story - this information is crucial to the audiences understanding of and commitment to the message, so it cannot be neglected despite the primacy and recency effects 3. Wrap-up and transitional closing - The closing completes the coverage of the topic and may also point to what's next, either by bridging to the next message unit or offering cues to what action should follow the message - Depending on the size, type, and organizational structure of the message, the closing may also offer a concluding summary of the major subpoints made in the body to ensure that the purpose of the message has been achieved - The closing appeals (recency effect), which is that, after first impressions, last impressions stick out because after the message concludes, we carry them in our short-term memory more clearly than what came before

Sentence moods

1. Declarative: - Subject + predicate - States information - The most common type of sentence 2. Imperative - Just a predicate (verb phase) - Gives an order or instruction (e.g., in a list of instructions), or makes a request 3. Interrogative - Verb phase + subject + object ending with a question mark - Asks a question 4. Exclamatory - Same structure as a declarative, but ends with an exclamation points - Expresses emotion 5. Subjunctive - Uses were as the form to be - Expresses hypothetical scenarios

sentence varieties

1. Simple: subject + predicate (one independent clause), expresses one complete thought, stylistically straightforward for each comprehension 2. Compound: at least two independent clauses joined by either 1 a comma and coordinating conjunction, or 2 a semicolon, combines complete thoughts to show the relationship between them 3. Complex: subordinate clause + main clause, signalled by a subordinating conjunction, the subordinating conjunction show the relationships between clauses 4. Compound complex - combined compound and complex sentences, requiring at least two independent clauses and one dependent clause, use occasionally because these can be long sentences

Paragraph size and structure

1. Topic Sentence - states the main point or thesis of the paragraph and thus summarizes the small collection of sentences following it, so the reader can take in the whole before examining the parts - Second sentence expands on the part in the topic sentence about accommodating the reader - Third sentence extends that idea to expand on the part in the topic sentence about how topic sentences summarize all paragraph parts as whole - The sentences that follow illustrate how that system works with explains - Final sentence wraps up the topic as broached in the first sentence while bridging to the next topic sentence, which in this case is about how to come up with a topic sentence - When you are just putting ideas down in the drafting stage of the writing process, you may not know yet what your point is at the outset of writing a paragraph 2. Body or Development Sentences - the development sentences expand on every component part of the topic sentence in a sequence of complete thoughts - The sentence that comprise this sequence explore the topic by following an organizing principle through detailed explanations, supporting evidence, illustrative examples, rhetorical counterpoints, and so on 3. Transitional or Concluding Sentence - final sentence of a well-organized sentence wraps up the topic exploration by completing the main point stated in the topic sentence, as well as establishing a thematic bridge to the topic sentence of the next paragraph if indeed there is one - As a bridge, the final sentence looks forward to the following topic sentence by previewing some of its terminology, just as the paragraph preceding this one does - As a wrap up, the final sentence should in no way merely paraphrase the topic sentence - Any topic summary belongs at the top where it can summarily preview the paragraphs subject, not buried at the bottom - The final sentence concludes the topic in the sense that it completes the expansion of topic-sentence points carried by the development sentences

Recognize the importance of organization

1. help your audience understand the message 2. help your audience accept your message 3. help your audience save time * always indentify your reader and the context to determine which method to employ

What most writing do in writing process

1. plan 2. write (95%) 3. complete (5%)

The three step writing process

1. plan (50%) 2. write (25%) 3. complete (25%)

common organization mistakes

1. taking too long to get to point 2. including irrelevant material 3. getting ideas mixed up 4. leaving out necessary information

Modifiers

A word or phrase that alters the meaning of a sentence. Can confused the meaning of sentence and cause errors. Place modifiers as close to the word or words they are modifying to be as clear as possible.

AIDA- A

Action: ask for a response or reply, provide a specific date and medium for reply

Dangling Modifiers

Add description. Goal is to ensure that they describe the correct thing. To correct - make sure the person or thing that could be responsible for doing the action described, or the subject of the description, is closest to the modifier.

Subordinating conjunctions

After, although, as, as if, as long as, as though, Because, before Even if, even though If, If only, In order that Now that Once Provided that Rather than Since, so that Than, that, though, til Unlessuntil When, whenever, where, whereas, wherever, whether, while

AIDA

Attention Interest Desire Action

AIDA- A

Attention: write a brief and engaging opening sentence. look for common ground on which to build your case

in person conversation and group meeting: expectations

Audience must be present and attentive rather than distracted by their mobile technology or multitasking Use of genuine dialogue rather than monologue or shallow, superficial exchanges A dynamic speaking ability is required to engage audiences

Business Writing: Achieving a Conversational Tone

Avoid obsolete, pompous language Avoid preaching and bragging Be careful with intimacy + humor

Jargon

Can be described as special phrases, acronyms, and/or short forms used in a given industry. Only beneficial when the person you're talking to understands what you're saying. Hi-Five Rep Set HIIT BMI

C's of style

Clear - identify yourself, background information, briefly summarizing email if long Concise - brief as possible Correct - proper grammar and spelling Courteous - not being rude Convincing Complete

Effective Communication

Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages. Only effective when you understand the message and respond to your message in the way you want.

Identify communication-related skills and personal qualities favoured by employees

Communication skills - Read and understand information presented in a variety of forms (words, graphs, charts, diagrams) - Write and speak so others pay attention and understand - Listen and ask questions to understand and appreciate the points of views of others - Share information using a range of information and communications technologies (voice, e-mail, computers) - Use relevant scientific, technological, and mathematical knowledge and skills to explain or clarify ideas Personal Qualities: - Adaptability: the curiosity-driven agility to solve problems through independent, on the-job learning - Resilience: "emotional courage" to persevere through challenges - Diverse background: well-roundedness coming from exposure to multicultural influences and engagement in diverse extracurricular activities including sports - Friendliness: being a "people person", happy around others and eager to serve - Conscientiousness: an inner drive to strive for detail-oriented excellence in completing tasks to a high standard without supervision - Professional presence: evidence of engaging in professional activities online Social and Emotional intelligence

What do employers look for?

Communication skills. READ and UNDERSTAND INFO presenting in a variety of forms (e.g., words, graphs, charts). WRITE and SPEAK. LISTEN and ASK QUESTIONS to understand and appreciate the POV of others. SHARE INFORMATION using a range of information and communications technologies (e.g., voice, e-mail). USE relevant scientific, technological, and mathematical. KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TO EXPLAIN OR CLARIFY IDEAS.

Defining your purpose in writing

General purpose: inform, persuade, collaborate Specific purpose: what is it you hope to accomplish? what do you want your audience to think or do after the receive your message?

email: advantages

Delivers messages instantly anywhere in the world to anyone with an internet connection and email address Sends to one or many people at once, including secondary audiences CC'd or BCC'd Allows you to attach documents up to several megabytes in size or links to any internet webpage

AIDA- D

Desire: making your request or stating your desire, providing solutions to anticipated reader objections

Formal Internal Communication Network

Downward: supervisor -> staff; memo from department supervisor to staff members telling them of upcoming departmental meeting Upward: staff -> supervisor; weekly accident report from line supervisor to personnel manager Horizontal: department to department; meeting between marketing team and production team

text messaging: advantages

Enables the rapid exchange of concise written messages Can be don't quietly so as to not be overheard Inexpensive

Parallel Structure

Every item in the list should follow same pattern, or present the same structure, to the reader if you use "to" in beginning of list, use it at the start of the rest. Same thing with "ing"

Coordinating Conjunctions

F for A and N nor B but O or Y yet S so

Email disadvantages

Gives the illusion of privacy: your messages can be forwarded to anyone, monitored by your company or an outside security agency, retrieved with a warrant, o hacked even if both you and receiver deleted them Can be slow when used for back-and-forth dialogue Tone may be misread (e.g., jokes misunderstood) due to the absence of nonverbal cues

persuasive approach is direct or indirect approach?

INDIRECT

AIDA- I

Interest: explain the relevance of your message, painting a more detailed picture, indicating concrete benefits

Misplaced Modifiers

Is a word that incorrectly modifies something in a sentence. Error results because the word is placed beside something it is not meant to be modifying. Only, barely, usually, sometimes, almost. Wrong: She barely drove the gold ball 300 yards Correction: She drove the gold ball barely 300 yards.

Run on sentence

Joins two independent clauses (complete sentences) without proper punctuation ex: my daughter attended the Oak Hills Academy I was not very impressed with it

Identify techniques for adjusting writing style according to considering secondary audiences

KNOW THE PRIVACY, DON'T USE BUSINESS ACCOUNTS IN A BAD WAY, KNOW YOUR BUSINESS CAN TRACK U DOWN - Your emails can be forwarded, your text or voicemail messages shown or played, and even what you say can simply be reported to tertiary audiences and be believed - Youth who are more comfortable writing electronically than speaking in person often make the mistake of assuming privacy when sending messages and get burned when those messages fall into the wrong hands - You may think you have a right to privacy in communication, and you do to some extent, but employers also have certain rights to monitor their employees and ensure company property isn't being misused - That's like using your company's email account in communication with a rival company to prove that they are part of a target company, then uses that email account to sell trade secrets before leaving for another job

General vs Specific writing

Know you reasons for writing is essential to staying on track in a writing process that, if followed from beginning to end, will save you time and effort by helping you write no more or less than you have to The general purpose is the end-goal of communication such as aiming to inform, persuade, motivate, entertain, or a combination of these and other effects Hope is that a senders message will come back as a feedback message proving that the receiver correctly understood the information, was persuaded to support an idea, was motivated to follow a desired action, was amused, etc Most common general purpose of workplace message is to inform. Most emails, memos, and reports cover a topic thoroughly and precisely with the journalistic 5 Ws + H subtopics. Who, what, where, when, why, how The specific purpose always depends on the situation at hand If you're to inform, the specific purpose is to provide a written record of the probable price so that the customer can compare estimates from other companies and decide which offers the best value Specific purposes may involve ulterior motives - hence secondary or tertiary purposes besides the primary general purpose Communicator must ensure that their purpose is realistic Knowing your general and specific purposes for writing at the outset of the writing process helps keep you on track with topic selection

Inclusive Language

Language that avoids the use of certain expressions or words that might be considered to exclude particular groups of people Especially gender-specific words and masculine pronouns that may be considered to exclude women Replace the gender specific pronoun with "you" or "your" in informal writing Replace the gender-specific pronoun with "their" Change singular pronouns to plural pronouns

Distinguish between communication channels to determine which is most appropriate for particular situations

Many professionals make the mistake of sending an email when another channel (e.g., a verbal rather than a written one) would be more appropriate for the situation and the audience Addressing sensitive situations exclusively by email (or, even worse, text message) tends only to intensify a conflict Email and messaging can't possibly address the emotional complexity of a toxic situation and usually results in costly delays given the time lag between responses We have more choice for communication channels than ever in human history Each has its own unique advantages and disadvantages that make it appropriate or inappropriate for specific situations

"You" Attitude

placing less emphasis on you as the sender and more emphasis on the readers respective remove i, we, and our, as much as possibly for you Incorrect: you cannot send your order until June 1 Right: your order will be sent on june 1

text messaging disadvantages

Often used to avoid human contact when telephone or in-person Encourages informality with lazy abbreviations, initialisms, and acronyms Even with autocomplete, typing with thumbs alone can be slower than using 10 fingers on a desktop or laptop computer

Sender-related miscommunication

POINT IS ACROSS CLEARLY, NO GRAMMAR MISTAKES, MAKE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING EASY TO UNDERSTAND o The responsibility of the sender of a message is to make it as easy as possible to understand the intended meaning o If work must be done to get your point across, it is on you as the sender to do all you can to make that happen o Grammar, punctuation, and even document design in written materials, as well as excellent conversational and presentation skills, are so important: sender errors in these aspects of communication lead to readers' and audiences' confusion and frustration o If senders of messages fail to anticipate their audience's needs and miss the target of writing or saying the right thing in the right way to get their messages across, they bear the responsibility for miscommunication and need to pay close attention to the lessons throughout this textbook to help them get back on target o If the sender has any doubt that their message is being understood, it's also on them to check in to make sure

Business Writing: Composing Messages

Pay close attention to correct use of words Use functional and content words correctly Understand denotation and connotation Balance abstract and concrete words Find words that communicate well

Cliches

Phrases that are used over and over again and don't really mean anything. Sick as a dog. Over the top. Moan and groan. Beg and plead. Quiet as a mouse.

Active voice

Presents the subject before the verb and/or subject. Subject is DOING the action. Jane passed the fitness test. The ECE read the story to the kids. The client refused to attend.

Ethical Communication

Principles of conduct that govern a person or group Ethical communication includes all relevant information, is true in every sense, and is not deceptive in any way

email: appropriate use

Quickly deliver a message that doesn't need a immediate response Send a message and receive a response in writing as evidence for future review Use when confidentiality isn't necessary

in person conversation and group meeting: appropriate use

Quickly exchange ideas with people close by Visually communicate to complement your words Add the human element in discussing sensitive or confidential topics that need to be worked out through dialogue

email: expectations

Reply within 24 hours, or sooner, if company policy requires that Follow convention for writing a clear subject line; salutation; message opening, body, and closing; closing salutation, and e-signature Netiquette: be as kind as you should be in person; don't write email angrily

in person conversation and group meeting: disadvantages

Requires that speakers travel to be physically in the same space together Some people are poor listeners and some are poor speakers Impermanent unless recording equipment is used

text messaging expectations

Response immediately or as soon we possible, since the choice to text or IM is usually for rapid exchange of information Be patient if the recipient doesn't respond immediately; they may be busy with real-life tasks Proofread when used for professional purposes as confusion due to writing errors can be costly when acted upon immediately

in person conversation and group meeting: advantages

The most information-rich channel combining words and nonverbal messages Dialogue facilitates immediate back-and-forth exchange of ideas Maintains the human element lacking in most other channels

Passive voice

The object is presenting before the subject and/or verb. The subject is therefore receiving the action instead of performing it The fitness test was passed by Jane. A story was read tot he kids. This is used when you want to avoid laying blame by not identifying the subject or when you do not know subject. The reports were filed by someone. The fire alarm was pulled.

text messaging appropriate use

Use for exchanging short messages quickly with someone physically distant Get an information exchange in writing for reference letter Use when confidentiality isn't important

Revising work for readability

Vary your sentence length Keep your paragraphs short Use lists and bullets to clarify and emphasize Use information headings and subheadings

Two types of modifiers

dangling modifiers misplaced modifiers

uses for indirect method

deliver negative information more gently butter up receiver communicating to those outside of your organization

Selecting an information sequence

direct approach - use when you KNOW your audience will be receptive to your message indirect approach - use when you THINK your audience will be skeptical about, or even resistant to, your message

Profiling your audience

identify your primary and secondary audiences determine audience size and geographic distribution understand audience expectations and preferences forecast your audiences probable reaction

Sentence Fragment

incomplete thoughts contains a subject but not verb contains a verb but no subject doesn't express complete thought fragment contains a subject and a verb but is incomplete or does not make sense Ex: because he did not provide the details of the agreement

Comma spliced sentences

joins two independent clauses (complete sentences) with a comma the lily is beautiful, the rose is magnificent.

Audience-centered approach

make your message meaningful to your audience by: - learning all you can about your audience - using common sense and imagination to project yourself into the audiences mindset - using the "you attitude"

Factors to consider when selecting a medium

message formality media limitations urgency cost audience preferences

Business/Professional Emails

must be written with the same care and detail as any memo, letter, or report must not be written with the same inattention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation as many personal emails

Barriers to effective communicaiton

noise and distractions competing messages perceptual differences language differences

channel-related miscommunication

o Errors can also be blamed on the medium of the message such as the technology and the environment - some of which can slide back to choices the sender makes, but others are out of anyone's control o If phone lines and the internet are down due to equipment malfunction, however rate that might be, the problem is obviously out of your hands and in the environment o It's entirely up to you to use the right channels the correct way in the environments best suited to clear communication to get the job done

receiver related miscommunication

o The responsibility of the receiver of a message is to be able to actively read or hear not only the message itself, but also to understand the nuances of the message in context o What if you cross paths with you manager in the hallway, and she says she's hungry. This statement is the primary message, which simply describes how the speaker feels o But if she says it in a manner that, with nonverbals (or secondary messages) such as eyebrows raised signaling interest in your response and a flick of the head towards the exit, suggests an invitation to join her for lunch. o If you responded with "Enjoy your lunch!" your manager would probably question your social intelligence and whether you would be able to capitalize on opportunities with clients when cues lined up for business opportunities o But if you replied, "I'm starving, too. May I joint you for lunch?" you would be correctly interpreting auxiliary messages such as your manager's intention to assess your professionalism outside of the traditional office environment. o If the restaurant is loud you could ask to move to a quite spot where you can converse with manager in a way that displays the polish of your manners and ultimately position you nicely for promotion, she would understand that you have the social intelligence to control the environmental conditions in ways that prioritize effective communication. o The receiver may lack the knowledge to understand your message; if this is because you failed to accommodate their situation - say you used formal language and big, fancy words but they don't understand because they are EAL (English as an additional language) - then the blame shifts back to you because you can do something aout it. o You can use more plain, easy-to-understand language. o If you're talking with a co-worker who should know what you're talking about when you use the jargon of your profession, but they don't because they're in the wrong position and in over their head, the problem is with the receiver o Another receiver problem may have to do with attitude. If a student, for instance, believes that they don't really need to take a class in Communications because they've been speaking English for 19 years, think their high school English classes were a complete joke, and figure they'll do just fine working out how to communicate in the workplace on their own, then the problem with this receiver is that overconfidence prevents them from keeping the open mind necessary to learn and take direction o Being an effective professional involves knowing how to avoid miscommunication by uploading one's responsibilities in the communication process towards the goal of ensuring proper understanding

Faculty Parallelism

occurs when a list or set of parallel ideas is presented to the reader using different forms ensures that two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses that serve the same function be presented in exactly the same way ex: mark enjoy jogging, singing, and to dance

Faulty Sentence Construction

occurs when a sentence is convoluted, lack words, contains unclear language, or is otherwise illegible Wrong: body language is crucial element of communication skills for successful communication between Correction: body language is an important communication skill

To achieve clarity, avoid:

passive voice cliches slang circular logic/repetition jargon wordiness

Uses for direct method

saves reader time and energy omits irrelevant details gets right to point simplifies inter office communication

Communication Process

sender has idea, sender encodes idea, sender produces message in a medium, sender transmits, receiver gets message, receiver decodes message, receiver responds to message, receiver gives feedback

Block format

senders address date inside address salutation body closing enclosures initials

Subject-verb disagreement

subject-verb disagreement occurs when your subject and your verb do not agree example: the coaches blows the whistle correction: the coaches blow the whistle

Direct/Immediate Strategy

the main message is presented at the beginning of the document this is the preferred method for business communication

Indirect/Climactic method

the main message is presented later in the message a case is presented carefully and logically until all the details needed for the reader to understand your point are presented

Persuasive Writing

tone, diction, bandwagon appeals, emotional appeals, logical appeals

Business Writing: Meeting Needs & Expectations

use the 'you attitude' maintain standards of etiquette emphasize the positive use bias-free language

Recognize that the quality of your communication represents the quality of your company

v Comparing the communication styles of the two companies, choosing who you're going to go with for your curstom job is a no-brainer v The connection between the quality of their communication and the quality of the job they'll do for you isn't water-tight v The company representative who took the time to ensure their writing was clear and professional, even proofreading it to confirm that it was error-free, will probably take the time to ensure the job they do for you will be the same high-calibre work that you're paying for v The company who didn't bother to proofread their email at all will likewise do a quick, sloppy, and disappointing job that will require you to hound them to come back and do it right v Good managers know that about their customers, so they hire and retain employees with the same scruples, which means they appreciate more than anyone that your writing represents you and your company v Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet where your writing is a "Projection of you in your physical absence" v Just as people judge flaws in your personal appearance, so they will judge you as a person if its obvious from your writing that "you can't tell the difference between their, there and they're" v It also comes down to the person applying. If potential employers or clients see that you care enough about details to write a flawless email, they will jump to the conclusion that you will be conscientious in your job and are thus a safe bet to gire v Its no guarantee of future success, but it increases your changes immeasurably The quality of your communication represents the quality of your work and the organization you work for, especially online when others have only your words to

Techniques for presentations

v Ensure they can properly hear you by projecting your voice so that even the people in the back row can hear you properly; check that they can by asking if they can hear you just fine v Get them involved and engaged by asking for a show of hands on a topical questions v Ask them to ask questions if they don't understand anything; make them feel at ease to ask questions by saying that there are no stupid questions and that if a question occurs to any one of them, it is probably also occurring to the rest v Flag important points and several minutes later, ask them to summarize them back to you when you are relating them to another major point

Persuasive messages: analyze your audience

what can I do to minimize their resistance? how likely are they to resist? what do i want them to do? what do they need or want? who are they?

Planning email messages 3 step process

when planning: - determine audience - follow company policies - respect confidentiality - determine indirect/direct writing: - give message a single purpose - an informative subject line - a salutation - carefully phrased introduction - complimentary closing - paragraph structure When completing: revise and proofread, evaluate readability, include email signature

Pronoun errors

when the pronoun does not agree with its antecedent/number/gender example: jennifer wrote its report yesterday correction: jennifer wrote her report yesterday

Ethical Dilemma

when you have to choose between two or more conflicting alternatives you might be facing an ethical dilemma you usually have no control over this

Ethical Lapse

when you make a clearly immoral choice, you've engineered an ethical lapse you have complete control over this, you make the choice

Types of communication in workplace

written (no immediate feedback) spoken (immediate feedback)

Consider how communication skills will ensure your future professional success

Ø Since the future of work is a series of careers and juggling several gigs at once, communication skills are key to transitioning between them all Ø If you're in the process in getting a new job communication and soft skills are important to convince your new employers to hire you Ø You cannot make career and gig transitions without communication skills Ø If you have no communication skills you will be stuck on the first floor of entry-level gigging unless you have soft skills to lift you up Ø More advanced your communication skills develop as you find your way through the gig economy, the further up the pay scale you'll climb