BC 2813 CH. 1

Genre Systems

A series of genres that comprise a wider social action involving multiple participants in fulfilling an organizational purpose

Selecting the Medium

Audience preferences and expectations The technological resources available How widely info needs to be distributed What kind of record you need to keep The urgency of the communication The sensitivity or confidentiality required Organizational practices or regulations

Checklist for Creating an Outline

Break Large topic into its major divisions and type or write them down Does the sequence fit your organization pattern? Repeat the process for each major topic Sequence the subtopics to fit your pattern of development and label them with capital letters If necessary, repeat the process for each third-level topic and label the topics with Arabic numbers (1,2,3) Key each of your notes to the appropriate place in your outline Merge your notes and your outline placing every note under the appropriate head, subhead, sub-subhead in your outline Then organize your notes under each head in the most logical sequence to convert your detailed outline into your first draft, put the first head on your computer screen and expand the notes listed under it into sentences and paragraphs.

Case Analysis

Business pedagogy based on principles of purpose, audience, and context

Features of Organizational Learning

Conscious Iterative Reflective Systematic Critical Pragmatic

Large Group Coordinator

Daniel emery

Checklist for Planning Documents

Determine your purpose Assess your audience's needs Consider the context of your writing Generate, gather, and record ideas and facts Establish the scope of coverage for your topic Organize your ideas Select the medium

Case Analysis Process

First Figure out the situation, and then put it aside for awhile and write down notes about what you have learned Second Begin to ask relevant questions about the case itself Third Address the question, what is my Hypothesis? The hypothesis is the most important phase of the case Fourth Let it drive your approach to writing your paper, what evidence do you have to support it. Fifth Question your hypothesis

Genre

Genre isn't merely form, but instead is also a typified social action. is a type of writing and its discourse "The purpose of the genre is not an individual's private motive for communication, but a purpose socially constructed and recognized by the relevant organizational community for typical situations."

Information Seeking and Research

Helps you draw effective business conclusions

Use of Outlines by Good or Poor Writers

More than three times the number of good writers as compared with poor writers create a written outline 36% of the poor writers said they never use an outline plan, either written or mental.

Four Factors Make Business Writing Important

New Communication Technologies: Network and cloud based information Wireless integration and automation Knowledge architectures and management Transition to an Information Economy: Movement from static to dynamic information reporting (AKA analytics) Technology increases the speed of innovation (and obsolescence) Most communication is handled remotely and electronically Globalization of Markets and Industries: Production, transportation, and distribution follow long multinational chains Consolidation of industries creates global corporations Web based applications mean that local merchants and providers compete in global markets Capital is more mobile than labor New Organizational Hierarchies: Horizontal and distributed systems Growth of the business service industry (consulting) Cross organizational collaboration

Barriers to Organizational Learning

Individual -Confirmation bias: We tend to seek data to confirm ideas and dismiss data that doesn't -Hindsight bias: We tend to recall successful predictions and forget unsuccessful ones Interpersonal -Fundamental attribution error: We tend to attribute personal failures to external conditions and others' failures to bad character -Social Desirability Bias:We tend to go along to avoid the interpersonal consequences of dissent Group -Responsibility Bias: When work is divided, we tend to press responsibilities on to generic others -Hierarchical Mum Effect: Subordinates are reluctant to share negative information for fear of damaging a relationship -Groupthink: Faulty decision making produced by a lack of critical assessments of alternatives, especially when created by the social desirability bias -Identification Ego Defense: Highly identified group members begin to associate their identity (self-concept) with their group membership and will in turn refuse to see the group as wrong (and themselves as wrong by extension).

Checklist for Ethical Considerations

Is the communication honest and truth? Am I ethically consistent in my communication? Am I acting in the best interest of my employer? What would happen if everybody acted or communicated this way? Does the action or communication violate anyone's rights? Am I willing to take responsibility for the communication, publicly and privately?

Systems Thinking Most Significant

It integrates all of the disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice.

Types of Cases

Problem Decision Evaluation Rule

Developing Confidence as a Writer

- Adequate preparation - Remember past writing projects; you have done this before - Don't wait for inspiration to write rough draft; treat writing the draft as you would any on the job task - Think of writing a rough draft a simply transcribing and expanding the notes from your outline into paragraphs -Leave good opening for last - Concentrate on ideas without attempting to polish or revise -Keep writing quickly to achieve unity, coherence and proportion -Dont criticize yourself for being able to write a smooth, readable sentence the first time.. -Remind yourself that you are beginning a draft that no one else will read

Rough Draft Checklist

- Set up a quiet writing area with necessary equipment and materials - Start with the section - First rule of good writing is to help your audience by communicating clearly - Imagine the reader sitting across the desk from you as you explain your topic - If you are writing instructions or procedures, visualize your readers actually performing the actions you're describing - Sales Letter: think of arguments from the reader's POV - Give yourself a 10-15 min time limit in which you write continually no matter how good/ bad it seems to you -Stop writing when you've finished a section (or before you're exhausted) -Reread what you have written when you return to your writing

Checklist of Revision Strategies

-Allow for cooling period (a day or two between writing a rough draft and revising it) -Pretend that a stranger has written your draft. "how could I have written that?" -Revise your draft in multiple passes. Don't try to improve everything all at once. Concentrate on larger issues first, such as content and organization; then turn to improving emphasis and polishing your language. -Be alert for the errors you typically make and correct them as you revise. -Print your draft and read it aloud. -Ask someone else to critique your draft

Revising Drafts by Other Writers

-Does it meet the established purpose of the document? -Does it meet needs of target audience? -Does content fall with planned scope of coverage? -Does it generally follow the agreed-on outline? -Is content complete? -Does it contain technical errors? -Do details and examples support the main points?

Emphasis

-Effective writing is emphatic writing-- it highlights the facts and ideas that the writer considers the most important and subordinates those of less importance. Active Voice -if the subject of the sentence acts Example: Rajesh Patel prepared the design for the new pump. Passive Voice -if the subject is acted on Example: The design for the new pump was prepared by Rajesh Patel

Conducting Secondary Research

-Involves gathering information that has been previously analyzed, assessed, evaluated, complied or otherwise organized into accesible form. -Include books and articles, as well as reports, web documents, online discussion forums, audio and video recordings, podcasts, business letters, minutes of meetings, operating manuals, brochures, and so forth.

Checklist for Evaluating Drafts

-Is purpose of the document clear? -Have you tailored content to right medium? -Is information organized in the most effective sequence? -Does each section follow logically from the one that precedes it? -Scope of coverage adequate? too little or too much information? -Are all facts, details, examples relevant to stand the purpose? -Are the main points obvious? -Are contradcitory statements resolved or eliminated?

Checklist Working in a Collaborative Group

-Know the people on your team and establish a good working rapport with them -Put interests of the team ahead of your own -Think collectively, as a group, but respect the views of members with subject area expertise -Participate constructively in group meetings -Be an effective listener -Be receptive to constructive criticism -Provide constructive feedback -Meet established deadlines

Advantages and Disadvantages of Collaborative Writing

-Many minds are better tan one. -Team members provide immediate feedback -Team members play devil's advocate for each other -Team members help each other past frustrations and stress of writing -Team members write more confidently -Team members develop a greater tolerance of and respect for the opinions of others. Disadvantages -The demand it can place on your time, energy, and ego as a writer -Conflicts can arise when not all team members participate or share equally in the team's work. -Team members may not be in same physical location

Planning

-Team collectively identifies the readers, purpose and scope of the project. It then creates a broad outline of the document, divides the work into sections, and assigns each section to individual team members, based of their subject expertise. -Select publication medium -Agree on style standards -Collaborating electronically -establish guidelines to ensure that all team members are working towards the same goal -Agree on how to exchange digital project files and whether to use collaborative writing software

Checklist for Writing Effective Paragraphs

-Unify paragraph around a central idea in a topic sentence -Ensure that every sentence relates to the topic sentence -Arrange ideas in a logical order around a central idea -Use transitions to help readers follow the sequence of ideas

Search Strategy Checklist

-What is the scope of the project? -Is only the most current information relevant to your topic? -What kind of sources best support your topic? -What formats are needed? -Do you need a range of opinions or points of view? fact-based resarch findings? some combination of both?

Elements of Coherence

-Writing is coherent when the relationship between ideas is clear to your audience. Each idea should relate clearly to others, with one idea flowing smoothly to the next. Paragraph Unity -When every sentence in a paragraph contributes to developing one central idea, the paragraph has unity. -The most effective way to unify paragraphs is to provide a topic sentence that clearly states the central idea of the paragraph and that directly relates to every other sentence in it. Transitions -Transitions is a two-way indicator of what you have said and what you are about to say; it provides readers with guideposts for linking ideas and clarifying the relationship between them. -Transitional expressions clarify and smooth the movement from idea to idea.

Conditions for Organizational Learning

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New Comm Technologies for Genres

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Organizational Learning Origin

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Section Number

023

Serge's 7 Disabilities

1) I am my position 2) The enemy is out there 3) The illusion of taking charge 4) The fixation of events 5) The parable of the boiled frog 6) The delusion of learning from experience 7) The myth of the management team

Serge's 5 Disciplines and Significance

1) Systems Thinking Each part of a system has an influence on the others. You can only understand the system by contemplating the whole thing, not any one individual part. 2) Personal Mastery The discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision-the spiritual foundation of a learning organization. 3) Mental Models Ingrained assumptions, generalizations, pictures, or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. 4) Building Shared Vision Goals, values, and missions that become deeply shared throughout the organization. When there is a genuine vision, people excel and learn because they want to, not because they are told to 5) Team Learning When teams are truly learning, the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.

Reasons for Writing Collaboratively

1. The project requires expertise or specialization in more than one subject area. 2. The project will benefit from merging different perspectives into a unified perspective. 3. The size of the project, time constraints, or importance of the project to your organization requires a team effort.

Case

A case is a text that refuses to explain itself

Consider Audience and Purpose: Organizing Info

Sequential: Takes reader step by step throughout the stages of a process in the order on which the process occurs Chronological: Takes reader step through the stages of an activity or event as it occurs in time from beginning to end. Division: Organizing info about a complex whole by breaking it into smaller units for reader, making it easier to understand. Classification: Way of organization info that groups disparate units into categories recognizable to your audience Decreasing Order of Importance: Introduces reader to main points at beginning, followed by background info that supports main points. Increasing Order of Importance: Leader reader through the thought process and details that support conclusions you reach a the end of writing Comparison: Allow reader to evaluate relative strengths of items that are under evaluation after basis for comparison has been established.

Primary Instructor

Steve Wilson

Business Librarian

Susan Hahn

Leading a Collaborative Team

Team leader's responsibility include scheduling and leading meetings, writing and distributing minutes of meetings, selecting the tools the team will use, and maintaining the master copy of the document during all stages of its development.

Two Advantages of Outlining

The information you plan to be sure that you have sufficient facts and details to satisfy your audience's needs outlining helps you achieve the purpose of your writing. Outlining forces you to order the information in a sequence that your audience will understand as clearly as you do.

Relationship of Audiences and Purpose to Organizations

The kinds of information and organization that shape your outline with vary according to your purpose of writing and your audience's specific needs.

Organizational Learning

The process of inquiry through which members of an organization develop shared values and knowledge based on the past experience of themselves and others

Business Resources and Databases

Resources - IBISWorld, Marketline Databases - ABI Inform, Factiva

Determining Purpose

You want your readers to know, to believe, or to be able to do something when they have finished reading what you wrote. Purpose gives direction to your writing. The more precisely you can state your primary purpose at the outset, the more successful your writing is likely to be.

Essential Organizing Patterns

Sequentially: Consecutive order of steps, not connected to a specific time Most effective way to explain a process or how to perform a procedure (writing instructions) Chronologically: Sequence of steps or events related to time Focus on the order in which the steps or events occur in time; trip reports, work schedules, minutes of meetings, lab tests,procedures and accidents reports. Spatially: Description from top to bottom, front to back, and so on. Building layouts, emergency evacuation plans, proposals for landscape work fashion design, many types of instructions Division and Classification: Division into parts and grouping of parts by class Division: Describe physical object / examine an organization/ To explain a system Increasing Order of Importance: Least to most important Want the most important of several ideas to be freshest in your readers' minds Decreasing order of Importance: Order beginning with the most important item and leading to the least important item Appropriate for a report addressed to a busy decision maker or for a report written to a variety of audiences , some of whom may be interested only in the major points. General to specific: Order leading from an overview to a specific detailed explanation Discusses one main point, all other information supports that one topic Specific to General: Order leading from the details of topic to a broad overview or conclusion Useful when purpose is to persuade a skeptical audience by providing specific details Comparison: Assessment of traits or characteristic of two or more items to describe their similarities and differences Works well in determining which of two or more items is most suitable for some specific purpose Must determine basis for making comparison Whole by part or part by whole

Checklist for Assessing Context

What is your professional relationship with readers? "Story" behind the immediate, reason you are writing? Specific factors or values that are important to your reader's organization or department? What is the corporate culture in which your readers work? What recent or current events within or outside an organization or department may influence how readers interpret your writing?

Genre Systems Influence

What we talk about Who is included When we will interact How we communicate Where we communicate Why we interact in a certain way

Writing for Your Reader

Who is your audience? What do you want them to know? Have you narrowed your topic to best focus on what you want your audience to know? Audience's needs in relation to subject? What does your audience know about the subject? How many audiences? Format enhance audience's understanding? Is your tone respectful?

Questions to Ask in Interrogation Process

Why won't this idea work? What are we missing that could challenge this idea? What could be wrong with this idea? How do we know what we know? How might someone else perceive this idea to be unethical? How are we deciding? What tests of quality can we apply to our decision making? l Where can we find disconfirming information? How do we hold each member accountable for his or her input? How do we encourage active dissent and disagreement?