Business Communications Ch. 8

Which of the following divisions is best suited for creating an outline of a report regarding the progress of a new manufacturing plant under construction?

D. Time

Which of the following is an appropriate practice for improving your interpretation of findings?

D. Using research to determine whether a cause-effect relationship is likely

_____ is an online network of library content and services

D. WorldCat

The small-scale version of a survey that is conducted before the actual survey is distributed is referred to as a _____.

D. pilot study

The _____ statement of a business report provides a clear description of the situation that created the need for the report

D. problem

The decimal outlining system uses _____ to show the major sections in a report.

D. whole numbers

General libraries typically limit their collections to a few types of specialized materials

False

LinkedIn focuses more on social connections than on professional connections

False

No one can post or edit articles in Wikipedia except the site moderator

False

Problem statements are generally written in the form of a question or infinitive phrase.

False

Secondary research produces new information through the use of surveys

False

The Boolean operator AND is used to expand a search by adding variations to the basic search term.

False

A well-structured outline for a report clearly indicates the hierarchy of the information in the report.

TRUE

Characteristics such as coherence and objectivity enhance the reception of a report

TRUE

In business reports, talking headings summarize the material they cover

TRUE

Probability samples are based on chance selection procedures.

TRUE

Researchers use area sampling when no master source list of a population is available

TRUE

To conduct an experiment, you systematically manipulate one factor of a problem while holding all the others constant.

TRUE

Using ample vertical white space between the topics in your business report will increase the readability of your message.

TRUE

You can improve the connecting network of thought throughout your report by using sentence transitions.

TRUE

The objective quality of a report is its unbiased approach

True

Primary research produces new information through the use of _____.

A. surveys

Possible explanations for or solutions to a problem are termed as ___

C. hypotheses

The _____ in business reports is also called the study's objective, aim, or goal.

E. purpose statement

Which of the following headings from a report violates parallelism of construction?

A. Assessment of production facilities B. Recreation costs C. A virtual team is preferred by overseas employees.

A study showed that women who were taking a particular kind of therapy also had lower incidence of heart disease. This led the doctors to believe that the therapy was protective against heart diseases. However, re-analysis of the data from the study showed that women taking this therapy were physically active and thus it was their lifestyle that made them less susceptible to heart diseases. Which of the following errors in interpretation is illustrated in the scenario?

A. Drawing illogical cause-effect conclusions

Which of the following is a characteristic feature of an online library catalog?

A. It enables you to search the material in several ways.

Which of the following is true of treating research participants ethically?

A. Participants in a research study have the right to informed consent.

Which of the following is the primary advantage of social bookmarking websites?

A. They help users organize and store their favorite Web resources.

What is the advantage of RSS feeds?

A. They keep users up to date on the Internet information they're interested in.

Which of the following headings from a report violates parallelism of construction?

A. Wilson leading in sales productivity

In the course of writing a business report, once you've defined the problem and identified your purpose, the immediate next step is to _____.

A. determine what factors you need to investigate

If the information you have collected has some relation to geographic location, you should typically use a _____ division

A. place

The sampling technique that gives every member of the group under study an equal chance of being included is known as _____ sampling.

A. simple random

Technorati assigns each blog a level of authority ranging from _____.

B. 0-1000

In the absence of any grounds establishing Ms. Catherine Larson as a good credit risk, you conclude she is a poor risk and turn down her application for credit. Which fallacy is most likely to undermine the validity of your decision?

B. Acceptance of lack of evidence as proof to the contrary

Examine the following and identify the option that violates parallelism of construction.

D. Production cost is increasing A. Slight increase in bank debits

Which of the following is most likely to be true about collaborative writing projects?

B. The combined talents of the members in a group are likely to produce a document better than any one of the members could produce alone.

Which of the following is true about social bookmarking websites?

B. They allow users to develop shared vocabularies.

Which of the following is the defining characteristic of wikis as compared to other online meeting places?

B. They are basically collaborative collections of knowledge.

Which of the following is true about libraries of private businesses?

B. They are designed to serve the sponsoring company.

Which of the following is a defining characteristic of qualitative researchers?

B. They use research tools that generate verbal data.

Which of the following is true about collaborative writing projects?

B. You should have at least two face-to-face meetings; one at the start of the project and another near the end.

The Boolean operator NOT is primarily used to _____.

B. eliminate citations with a particular term

Wikipedia is usually not used as a main resource for research because it _____.

B. is written by and maintained by volunteers

Which of the following can help you evaluate the reliability of the information on a website?

C. All of these factors

The conventional outlining system typically uses _____ to show the lesser headings in a report.

C. Arabic numbers

Which of the following falls under the "interpret the information" step of collaborative writing projects?

C. Group participants must think through the facts, apply the facts to the problem, derive logical meaning from the facts, and see them from the readers' points of view.

Which of the following is true about collaborative writing projects?

C. In most business situations, the highest ranking administrator in the group serves as leader.

Which of the following is true about secondary research?

C. It uses material that someone else has published.

Examine the following sentence taken from a report. Which relationship is established by the transitional phrase "similarly" with its preceding content? "Similarly, Crompton has outstanding qualities."

C. Likeness

Which of the following is the most appropriate problem statement for a business report on decline of sales?

C. Management wants to know the reasons for sales decline.

When you are considering using information on a website in your own research, which of the following factors would be most important to consider?

C. Validity

The difference between before-after and controlled before-after experimental design is that the _____.

C. controlled before-after design involves not one group, but two

If a user finds it difficult to think of terms to broaden his or her search, he or she must _____.

C. look at the keywords or descriptors of the items that have already been identified

Secondary research produces information primarily through the use of _____.

C. websites

Which of the following words is dissimilar from the other expressions in terms of the type of transition it makes?

D. Also

_____ are measures of central tendency, dispersion, ratios, and probability

D. Descriptive statistics

Examine the following sentence taken from a report. Which relationship is established by the transitional phrase "for example" with its preceding content? "The Mills Company, for example, has conducted such a program for the past eleven years."

D. Explanation or elaboration

Which of the following is a source of primary research?

D. Interview

Which of the following is an advantage of using Boolean logic?

D. It helps to get relevant Internet-based information.

Which of the following falls under the "organize the material" step of collaborative writing projects?

E. Group participants must base the report's structure on the time, place, quantity, factor, or other relationships in the data.

Which of the following is a defining characteristic of a special library?

E. It limits its collections to one type or just a few types of material.

Which of the following is true about primary research?

E. It produces new information through the use of experiments.

Which of the following is true about problem statements?

E. Problem statements are generally written as declarative statements.

Which of the following is true about purpose statements?

E. Purpose statements are often written in the form of a question

The conventional outlining system uses _____ to show the major headings in a report.

E. Roman numerals

_____ primarily measures a person's experience when interacting with a product.

E. Usability testing

When two search terms are linked with the Boolean operator OR, it ___

E. adds variations to the basic search term

Using present-time viewpoint requires that all the _____.

E. information other than the current information be presented in its proper place in the past or future

During the report-writing process, in order to minimize errors while interpreting your information you should _____.

E. refrain from interpreting a lack of evidence as proof to the contrary

When determining the time viewpoint you should use in your report, you _____.

E. should use the present-time viewpoint when saying what the findings mean

A technique of good report writing is to bring to life the contents of your report by using passive-voice verbs as much as possible.

FALSE

Demographic testing measures a person's experience when interacting with a product.

FALSE

Descriptive statistics are typically used to generalize about a population based on the study of a sample.

FALSE

Emotionally charged language increases the objectivity of a business report

FALSE

For best results, all members of a report-writing group should be assigned the task of editing the final draft.

FALSE

In the case of collaborative report writing, the last step should be to determine the problem and purpose of the report

FALSE

Information collected by groups that advocate a position is usually more creditable than information gathered by neutral parties

FALSE

Once people agree to participate in a study, they are not allowed to discontinue their participation at any time during the study.

FALSE

Quantitative researchers use research tools that generate verbal data.

FALSE

Talking headings are short constructions, frequently consisting of one or two words

FALSE

The decimal outlining method uses Roman numerals to show the major sections of a business report.

FALSE

The ranking technique provides a scale showing the complete range of possible attitudes on a topic and assigns number values to the positions on the scale.

FALSE

Once you've defined the problem and identified the purpose of your research, you should determine what factors you need to investigate.

True

Search tools that allow users to run a search simultaneously with several individual search engines are called metasearch tools.

True

Users of website information are particularly susceptible to misinformation in the form of advertising claims.

True