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SHORT NOTES FOR MIDTERM PREPARATION (ENG201)
"in the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful" Business and Technical English (ENG201) LECTURE 1: Introduction to Business and Technical Communication
- Written Communication will cover planning, structures, and stylistic issues. The students will learn to write memos and letters; proposals; short and long reports; and procedure and policy documents.
- Oral Communication section will cover the planning and execution of effective presentations; group behavior, planning and conducting effective meetings.
- A graph plotted for percentage of hours spent versus the number of people who responded to the survey. Writing well can bring you many personal benefits as well:
- Recognition in the form of praise
- Raises
- Promotions
- At work, your communication should only include the information your readers need. Extra information would only clog your readers’ path to what they need, resulting in: Decreased efficiency Increased frustration Types of Communication: People at work write different communication than those of written at schools. Instead of term papers and exams, they write such things as: Memos Business letters Instructions Project proposals Progress Reports
- To succeed on the job, you will need to learn to write under the circumstances in which your employer claims ownership of your communication. It is absolutely essential to think constantly about your readers. Think about what they want from you and why?
Think about the ways you want to affect them. Think about the ways they will react to what you have to say.
- As you write in a professional environment, you need to remember three things:
- Readers create meaning.
- Readers' responses are sharpened by situation.
- Readers react on a moment-by-moment basis. LECTURE 2: Oral Communication (Most important lecture for exams) Oral Presentations: Oral presentations can be formal or informal depending upon their explicit and implicit purposes and the delivery situation. Formal and Informal Oral Reports: An oral report may be delivered around a small table with just a few listeners or in a large auditorium to hundreds of people. Formal Oral Reports are usually prepared well in advance of presentation and are therefore well rehearsed. Formal oral reports may follow an outline similar to the parts of any formal written report and may be presented to an audience of one's peers or to an interested general or a mixed audience in a setting such as a large auditorium or hall. Informal Oral Reports are generally characterized by small- group settings with a high degree of audience interaction and a relaxed manner of delivery and dress. Informal oral presentations can foster the free exchange of ideas and can be important for producing action items. Oral presentations in a professional environment generally fall into two categories: Informative Speaking Persuasive Speaking Informative Speaking: Informative Speaking has audience learning as its primary goal. An informative speech may explain a concept, instruct an audience, demonstrate a process, or describe an event. In a professional setting, the informative speech may take many different forms: Individual or Group Report Oral Briefing Panel Discussion Oral Critique Persuasive Speaking:
Personal appearance and grooming. Knowledge of the Audience:
- Do not patronize your audience!
- Neither speak down nor speak up to your audience. Knowledge of the Subject: Whether you use notes, manuscript, or strictly memory, you must know your subject well. If gaps exist, fill them up! Use of Time and Rehearsal: Time limits are to be observed! Even if no time limit is given, you should strive to do justice to your subject in as little time as possible, but not at the price of an incomplete presentation. Personal Appearance:
- Your personal appearance affects your credibility.
- Informal clothing is rarely appropriate for a professional presentation.
- Pay significant attention to personal grooming. Delivering an Oral Presentation: A well planned and well-structured presentation can almost be ineffective because of the bad presentation delivery. Following is important in this regard: • Poise and Enthusiasm Eye Contact Use of Voice Use of Time Making a Formal Presentation: The material of your presentation should be concise, to the point and tell an interesting story.
- Voice - how you say it is as important as what you say.
- Body Language - a subject in its own right and something about which much has been written and spoken.
- Appearance - first impressions influence the audience's attitudes to you. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Using Visual Aids for Oral Presentations: Visual aids significantly improve the interest in a presentation. However, they must be relevant to what you want to say. Here are some possibilities:
- Overhead Projection Transparencies (OHPs)
- 35mm Slides
- Computer Projection (PowerPoint, applications such as Excel, etc.)
- Video and Film
- Real Objects - either handled from the speaker's bench or passed around
- Flip Chart or Blackboard - possibly used as a 'scratch-pad' to expand on a point
- Keep it simple though - a complex set of hardware can result in confusion for speaker and audience. LECTURE 3: Reader-Centered Writing Writing your Resume: Defining your objectives: The first activity of writing- defining objectives- is especially important while you are writing a simple letter or job application letter. To take the reader centered approach, you need to look at three things: a. The final result you desire. b. The people who will read your communication. c. The specific way you want your communication to affect the people as they read your communication.
- In the first stage , employers try to attract applications from as many qualified people as possible.
- To understand the first stage , you may find it helpful to draw an imaginary portrait of the person going through your resume.
- In the second stage of recruiting , employers carefully scrutinize the qualifications of the most promising applicants.
- To imagine your reader , you can imagine the head of the department at this stage.
- Deciding how you want your resumes to affect your readers is important. To determine how your resume will affect your reader, you can think about two things:
- The way you want your communication to alter your reader’s attitude
- The task you want to help your readers perform while they read Planning: When you plan, you decide what to say and how to organize your material. In addition, you should find relevant expectations your readers have about your communication. Organizing your material:
General experts Specific experts General experts possess extensive knowledge about a field in general, but they might be unfamiliar with particular technical terms, specific equipment, or recent advances in your document's subject matter. Specific experts , on the other hand, share or surpass your knowledge about a document's subject matter. Managers read technical and scientific documents for a variety of purposes:
- To aid in making decisions
- To assess current situations
- To maintain their general level of expertise
- To evaluate projects and employees In general , managers read for the bottom line , a concise summary of the present situation and specific recommendations for action. LECTURE 5: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION DEFINING OBJECTIVES-I Defining your Communication Objectives: Defining Objectives – determining what your document needs to accomplish to be successful. Defining the objectives of your communication is extremely important. Purpose for writing documents Document Purpose: Documents should be created for explicit purposes or goals that both the writer and the reader would readily agree on. There are four general categories:
- To provide information
- To give instructions
- To persuade the reader
- To enact (or prohibit) something Points to keep in mind while writing a document: Make the explicit purpose clear at the beginning of your document in an abstract, an executive summary, an introduction, or all of these. Explicit Purposes of a Document:
Explicit purpose means the purpose which is clearly stated.
- To provide information
- To give instructions
- To persuade the reader
- To enact (or prohibit something) Documents that provide information Document Types: Literature reviews Specifications Sections in Document: Background Theory Materials Results Tables Documents that give instructions Document Type: Proposals Sections in Document: Procedures Work plan Documents meant to ‘persuade’ the reader Document Types: Proposals Recommendation Reports Job application Letters Résumés Sections in Document: Discussion Conclusion Recommendation Documents meant to ‘enact’ something: Document Type:
Phantom Readers Future Readers Complex Readers Phantom Readers: Written communications addressed to one person are used by others. These real but unnamed readers are called phantom readers. Future Readers: The readers who will be reading your document/s in future are your future readers. Complex Readers: Complex readers are the readers consisting of diverse groups with widely varying backgrounds and responsibilities. Guideline-V (Fill in a sample worksheet that should be kept in mind when defining objectives.) Defining Objectives
- Overall, Purpose
- Reader’s Profile
- Reader’s Information Needs
- Reader’s use of the information provided
- Reader’s Attitude In the style guides, instructions are generally provided for numerous document elements including most of the following:
- Page formats (title page and sample page with headers or footers)
- Numbering systems (page, graphics, sections)
- Headings and subheadings
- Graphics elements
- Usage
- Punctuation and mechanics
- Document packaging LECTURE 7: ACCURACY, CLARITY, CONCISENESS COHERENCE (Important lecture for exams) Characteristics of Effective Technical Communication:
A good technical communication is: accurate clear concise coherent appropriate What is accuracy and why is it important?
1. Accuracy: Cultivate accuracy in your writing. Accuracy, which is the careful conforming to truth or fact, has three main aspects: Document Accuracy Stylistic Accuracy Technical Accuracy Document Accuracy: Document accuracy refers to the proper coverage of your topics in appropriate detail. Often an accurate document needs to focus clearly on a problem. Stylistic Accuracy: Stylistic accuracy concerns the careful use of language to express meaning. Stylistic accuracy is also a matter of using words precisely. Technical Accuracy: Technical accuracy depends on the writer's conceptual mastery of the subject and its vocabulary, as well as on his or her ability to analyze and shape data with a minimum of distortion. **What is Clarity and why is it important?
- Clarity:** Strive for clarity in your writing. Clarity, which refers to ease of understanding, is a special problem in technical and professional writing. You can increase the clarity of your material by securing the following: Structural Clarity Stylistic Clarity Contextual Clarity Structural Clarity: At the level of the whole document, you can promote structural clarity thus making it easy for the reader to get the large picture.
Use enumeration in paragraphs when you want to itemize or list a set of topics or a series of some kind. Exemplification: Exemplification refers to the use of anecdotes or examples to bolster your argument or whatever you are writing about. Comparison and Contrast: Use comparison and contrast to develop a topic by examining its similarities or dissimilarities to another thing, process, or state. Comparison emphasizes the similarities, contrast, the differences. A paragraph may use both comparison and contrast. LECTURE 8: (Most important lecture for exams) THE SEVEN C’S OF EFFECTIVE COMMU NICATION-I To compose a written or oral message, you must apply certain communication principles. These are called the seven C’s of effective communication.
1. Completeness 2. Conciseness 3. Consideration 4. Concreteness 5. Clarity 6. Courtesy 7. Correctness The seven Cs apply to both written and oral communication. 1. Completeness: Your message is complete when it contains all the facts readers or listeners need for the reaction you desire. Benefits of Completeness: Complete messages are more likely to bring the desired results. They do a better job at building goodwill. Guidelines to secure Completeness in your writing
- Provide all necessary information.
- Answer all questions asked.
- Give something extra, only when desired. Provide all the necessary information: Answer the five Ws that make the message clear.
- Who
- What
- When
- Where
- Why Answer all the questions asked: If you have no information on a particular question, say so clearly. If you have unfavorable information in answer to certain questions, handle your reply with both tact and honesty. Credibility: Credibility of the communicator has been systematically analyzed over the years, often as relating to the speaker. Several classic but still relevant studies suggest that five decisions are made regarding a communication source. Competence: Does the audience perceive the message sender as communicating honestly? Character: Does the sender of the message know his or her message? Composure: Does the sender give the impression of being cool, calm, and collected? Sociability: Does the sender come across as a likable individual? Extroversion: Does the source exhibit outgoing tendencies rather than timidity? 2. Conciseness: Conciseness is saying what you want to say in the fewest possible words without sacrificing the other C qualities. To achieve conciseness, observe the following suggestions: a. Eliminate wordy expressions: Use single-word substitutes instead of phrases whenever possible without changing meaning. Wordy: At this time Concise: Now Wordy: Due to the fact that Concise: because Wordy: have need for Concise: Need Wordy: In due course Concise: Soon b. Include only relevant material
Communicating concretely means being specific, definite, and vivid rather than vague and general. Often it means using denotative (direct, explicit, often dictionary-based) rather than connotative words. The following guidelines will help you compose concrete and convincing messages.
1. Use Specific Facts and Figures: Whenever possible, use an exact, precise statement or a figure in place of a general word to make your message more concrete. 2. Put Action in Your Verbs: Verbs can activate other words and help make your sentences alive or vigorous. To have dynamic sentences:
- Use active rather than passive verbs.
- Put action in your verbs. 3. Choose vivid and image-building words: You can make your message forceful, vivid, and specific by using comparisons, sensory appeals, figurative language, concrete nouns, and well-chosen adjectives. LECTURE 10: THE SEVEN C’S OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION III Clarity: Getting the meaning from your head accurately to the reader is the purpose of clarity. Remember: Choose precise, concrete and familiar words. Clarity is achieved through a balance between precise language and familiar language. When you have the choice between a long word and a short word, choose the short and familiar word. Golden Rule: When in doubt, use the more familiar words; audience will understand them better. A. Choose precise, concrete, and familiar words: With the increased use of e-mail, there is the tendency to be concise. The danger is that you must know the meaning of e-mail acronyms which aid conciseness. For instance, IMO means in my opinion, FAQ means frequently asked questions etc. B. Construct Effective Sentences and Paragraphs: At the core of clarity is the sentence. Important characteristics to consider are: - Length - Unity - Coherence
- Emphasis Length: Try for an average sentence length of 17 to 20 words. When the sentence length increases, try to chop it down into two sentences. Also, if the sentences are too short then the resulting language becomes overly simple and choppy. Unity: In a sentence, unity means that you must have one main idea. In case of other ideas they must be closely related. Coherence: In a coherent sentence the words are arranged so that the ideas clearly express the intended meaning. Place the correct modifier as close as possible to the word it is supposed to modify. Emphasis: The quality that gives force to important parts of sentences and paragraphs is emphasis. Most often put main ideas up front within a sentence. Writers must decide what needs emphasis, and then decide the correct sentence structure. Courtesy: Courtesy stems from a sincere you-attitude. True courtesy involves being aware not only of the perspectives of others but also their feelings. a) Be sincerely tactful, thoughtful, and appreciative b) Thoughtfulness and Appreciation c) Use expressions that show respect d) Choose Non-discriminatory Expressions LECTURE 11: THE SEVEN C’S OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION Formal Writing: Formal writing is often associated with scholarly writing. Informal Writing: This style of writing is more common in business writing. An example is the communication via e-mail, memos, etc. Reminder:
- Avoid substandard language:
- Use specific and definite figures.
- Use vivid image building words. Clarity: Getting the meaning from your head accurately to the reader is the purpose of clarity. Choose Precise, Concrete, and Familiar words: Clarity is achieved through a balance between precise language and familiar language. When you have the choice between a long word and a short word, choose the short and familiar word. Golden Rule: When in doubt, use the more familiar words; audience will understand them better. Courtesy: True courtesy involves being aware not only of the perspectives of others, but also their feelings. Knowing your audience allows you to use statements of courtesy. Be aware of your message receiver. Courtesy stems from a sincere you-attitude. LECTURE 12: PLANNING BUSINESS MESSAGES Composing of Business Message: The composition process can be viewed as ten separate stages that fall into three simple categories: A. Planning B. Composing C. Revising A. Planning: Define purpose Analyze audience Establish main idea Select channel and medium B. Composing: Organize the message Formulate the message C. Revising: Edit the message Rewrite the message Produce the message
Proofread the message Defining your Purpose: The purpose of the document helps you decide how to precede, how to respond to the audience, which information to focus on, and which channel or medium to use. Common Purpose of Business Message: Business messages have the following general purposes: Inform Persuade Collaborate Specific Purpose: Beyond having a general purpose, your message might have a specific purpose. To determine the specific purpose, think of how the audience's ideas or behavior should be affected by the message.
- Make your Message easier to comprehend: Devices that make your message easier to comprehend include summaries, overviews, headings, lists, enclosures, appendixes, handouts, charts, and graphs. - Establishing the Main Idea: The main idea is the 'hook' that sums up why a particular audience should do or think as you suggest. **- Use Brainstorming Techniques
- Limit the Scope:** The main idea should be geared to the length of the message. Select Appropriate Channel and Medium: The mediums could be: Oral Written Electronic - Oral medium: Oral medium is best when you want immediate feedback. You use this medium when your message is relatively simple; you don’t need a permanent record. - Written medium:
