GEB3213 02 MIDTERM OUTLINE MODULE OUTLINES Module 1 o Business Communication management and success Communication helps organizations and the people in them achieve their goals The ability to write and speak well becomes increasingly important as you rise in an organization People put things in writing to create a record to convey complex data to make things convenient for the reader to save money and to convey their own messages more effectively Internal documents go to people inside the organization External documents go to audiences outside clients customers suppliers stockholders the government the media and the general public The three basic purposes of business and administrative communication are to inform to request or persuade and to build goodwill Most messages have more than one purpose A one page message that took an hour to plan write and revise cost on average 22 13 Poor writing costs even more since it wastes time wastes efforts and jeopardizes goodwill Good business and administrative writing meets five basic criteria it s clear complete and correct it saves the reader s time and it builds goodwill To evaluate a specific document we must know the interactions among the writer the reader the purposes of the message and the situation No single set of words will work for all readers in all situations To understand business communication situations ask the following questions Should you send a message What s at stake to whom What channel should you use What should you say How should you say it Use the PAIBOC question to analyze business communication problems P What are your purposes in writing or speaking A Who is your audience How do members of your audience differ What characteristics are relevant to the particular message I what information must your message include B What reasons or reader benefits can you use to support your position O What objections can you expect your reader to have What negative elements of your message must you deemphasize or overcome C How will the context affect reader response Think about your relationship to the reader morale in the organization the economy the time of year and any special circumstances A solution to a business communication problem must both solve the organizational problem and meet the needs of the writer or speaker the organization and the audience Module 2 o Adapting Your Message to Your Audience The primary audience will make a decision or act on the basis of your message The secondary audience may be asked by the primary audience to comment on you message or to implement your ideas after they ve been approved The initial audience routes the message to other audiences and may assign the message A gatekeeper controls whether the message gets to the primary audience A watchdog audience has political social or economic power and may base future actions on its evaluation of your message A sender goes through the following steps perception interpretation choice or selection encoding transmitting the message through a channel The receiver perceives the message decodes it interprets its chooses a response encodes the response and transmits it The message transmitted to the original sender is called feedback Noise is anything that interferes with communication it can be both physical and psychological Miscommunication can occur at every point in the communication process Channel overload occurs when a channel cannot handle all the messages being sent Information overload occurs when the receiver cannot process all the messages that arrive Both kinds of overload require some sort of selection to determine which messages will be sent and which ones will be attended to Common sense and empathy are crucial to good audience analysis A discourse community is a group of people who share assumptions about what channels formats and styles to use what topics to discuss and how to discuss them and what constitutes evidence An organizations culture is its values attitudes and philosophies Organizational culture is revealed verbally in the organizations myths stories and heroes and nonverbally in the allocation of space money and power When you write to multiple audiences use the primary audience and the gatekeeper to determine level of detail organization level of formality and use of technical terms and theory You can adapt your messages strategy organization and stile to meet the audience s needs For paper or electronic documents you can also adapt the documents design and the photos or illustrations you choose The best channel for a message will depend on the audience the sender s purposes and the situation Channel choice may be shaped by the organizational culture When you communicate to a big audience or about an important topic use multiple channels Module 5 o Designing Documents Slides and Screens An attractive document looks inviting friendly and easy to read The visual grouping of ideas also makes the structure of the document more obvious so it is easier to read Good document design can save time money and legal problems To create visually attractive document Use white space Use headings Decide whether to justify margins based on the situation and the audience Limit the use of words set in all capital letter Limit the number of fonts in a single document As you design slides for PowerPoint and other presentation programs Use a big font Use bullet point phrases Use clear concise language Make only three to five points on each slide Customize your slides Good web pages have both good content and an interesting design Orient the surfing reader to the organization Offer an overview of the content of your page with links to take readers to the parts that interest them Make it clear what readers will get if they click on a link Keep graphics small Provide visual variety Unify multiple pages with a small banner graphic or label On each page provide a link to the home page the name and email address of the person who maintains the page and the date when the page was last revised Provide a skip intro button for animated introductions and an off button for sound To test a document observe readers ask them to think aloud while completing the task interrupt them at key points to ask what they are thinking or ask them to describe the thought process after completing the document and the task The best documents are created when you think about design at each stage of the writing process As you plan think about the needs of your audience
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