Business Communication

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You-attitude is a style of writing that:

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Looks at things from the reader's point of view.
Respects the reader's intelligence.
Protects the reader's ego.
Emphasizes what the reader wants to know.

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You-attitude is a matter of style. Revisions for you-attitude do not change the basic meaning of the sentence. However, revising for you-attitude often makes sentences longer since sentences become more

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specific.

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To create you-attitude in sentences,

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1.Talk about the reader, not about yourself.
2.Refer to the reader's request or order specifically.
3.Don't talk about feelings, except to congratulate or offer sympathy.
4.In positive situations, use you more often than I. Use we when it includes the reader.
5.Avoid you in negative situations

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Apply you-attitude beyond the sentence level by using

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organization, content, and layout as well as style to build goodwill

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•Positive emphasis means focusing on the positive rather than the negative aspects of a situation.

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1.Avoid negative words and words with negative connotations.
2.State information positively. Focus on what the reader can do rather than on what you won't or can't let the reader do.
3.Justify negative information by giving a reason or linking it to a reader benefit.
4.If the negative is truly unimportant, omit it.
5.Put the negative information in the middle and present it compactly.

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are words that are not negative in themselves but become negative in context

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Hidden negatives

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The desirable tone for business writing is businesslike but not stiff, friendly but not phony, confident but not arrogant, polite but not groveling. The following guidelines will help you achieve the tone you want.

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Use courtesy titles for people outside your organization whom you don't know well.
Be aware of the power implications of the words you use.
When the stakes are low, be straightforward.
When you must give bad news, consider hedging your statement.

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Don't apologize if the error is small and if you are correcting the mistake. Don't apologize if you are not at fault. If the delay or problem is long or large,

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it is good you-attitude to ask the reader whether he or she wants to make different arrangements.

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When you apologize, do it

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early, briefly, and sincerely. However, apologies may have legal implications, so some organizations prefer that apologies not be issued to customers or the public.

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Use the PAIBOC question to analyze business communication problems:

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P What are your purposes in writing or speaking?

A Who is (are) your audience(s)? 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 objection(s) can you expect your reader(s) 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.

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The three basic purposes of business and administrative communication are to

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inform, to request or persuade, and to build goodwill. Most messages have more than one purpose.

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A one-page message that took an hour to plan, write, and revise cost on average $22.13.

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Poor writing costs even more since it wastes time, wastes efforts, and jeopardizes goodwill

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To understand business communication situations, ask the following questions:

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• What's at stake—to whom?

• Should you send a message?

• What channel should you use?

• What should you say?

• How should you say it?

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People put things in writing to

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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

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Internal documents go to people inside the organization. External documents go to audiences outside:

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clients, customers, suppliers, stockholders, the government, the media, the general public.

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The primary audience will

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make a decision or act on the basis of your message.

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The secondary audience may be

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asked by the primary audience to comment on your message or to implement your ideas after they've been approved.

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The initial audience

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routes the message to other audiences and may assign the message.

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A gatekeeper controls

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whether the message gets to the primary audience.

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A watchdog audience

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has political, social, or economic power and may base future actions on its evaluation of your message.

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A sender goes through the following steps:
transmitting the message through a .

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perception, interpretation, choice or selection, encoding,

channel

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The receiver

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perceives the message, decodes it, interprets it, chooses a response, encodes the response, and transmits it.

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The message transmitted to the original sender is called

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feedback.

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anything that interferes with communication; it can be both

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Noise

physical and psychological.

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When you write to multiple audiences, use the ? audience and the ? to determine level of detail, organization, level of formality, and use of technical terms and theory

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primary gatekeeper

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Miscommunication can occur at

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every point in the communication process.

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An organization's culture is its

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values, attitudes, and philosophies. Organizational culture is revealed verbally in the organization's myths, stories, and heroes and nonverbally in the allocation of space, money, and power

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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.

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A discourse community

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what are crucial to good audience analysis.

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Common sense and empathy

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You can adapt your message's strategy, organization, and style to meet the audience's needs. For paper or electronic documents, you can also adapt

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the document's design and the photos or illustrations you choose.

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provides patterns of acceptable behavior and beliefs.

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Culture

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In low-context cultures,

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context is less important; most information is explicitly spelled out.

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In high-context cultures,

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most of the information is inferred from the context of a message; little is explicitly conveyed.

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Nonverbal signals can be misinterpreted just as easily as can verbal symbols (words). t/f

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true

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North Americans who believe that “time is money” are often frustrated in negotiations with people who want to establish a personal relationship before they decide whether to do business with each other or who measure time in

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15- or 30-minute increments rather than the 5-minute intervals North Americans are used to

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Monochronic cultures treat time as a resource. The United States is classified as monochronic. Polychronic cultures emphasize

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relationships.

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The successful intercultural communicator is:

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Aware that his or her preferred values and behaviors are influenced by culture and are not necessarily “right.”
Flexible and open to change.
Sensitive to verbal and nonverbal behavior.
Aware of the values, beliefs, and practices in other cultures.
Sensitive to differences among individuals within a culture.

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Bias-free language is

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fair and friendly; it complies with the law. It includes all readers; it helps to sustain goodwill.

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A subject line is the title of a document. A good subject line meets three criteria:

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it's specific; it's reasonably short; and it's adapted to the kind of message (positive, negative, persuasive).

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If you can't make the subject both specific and short, be

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specific

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The subject line for an informative or positive message should

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highlight any good news and summarize the information concisely.

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Informative and positive messages normally use the following pattern of organization:

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Give any good news and summarize the main points.
Give details, clarification, and background.
Present any negative elements—as positively as possible.
Explain any reader benefits.
Use a goodwill ending: positive, personal, a forward-looking.

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Use reader benefits in informative and positive messages when:

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You are presenting policies.
You want to shape readers' attitudes toward the information or toward your organization.
Stressing benefits presents readers' motives positively.
Some of the benefits may not be obvious to readers.

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Organize negative letters in this way:

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Give the reason for the refusal before the refusal itself when you have a reason that readers will understand and accept.
Give the negative just once, clearly.
Present an alternative or compromise, if one is available.
End with a positive, forward-looking statement.

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When you must pass along serious bad news to peers and subordinates, use a variation of the pattern to superiors:

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Describe the problem.
Present an alternative or compromise, if one is available.
If possible, ask for input or action.

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summarizes what you did in a timeline (starting with the most recent events and going backward in reverse chronology ). It emphasizes degrees, job titles, and dates. Use a chronological résumé when your education and experience:
Are a logical preparation for the position for which you're applying.
Show a steady progression leading to the present

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A chronological résumé

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emphasizes the skills you've used, rather than the job in which or the date when you used them. Use a skills résumé when:
Your education and experience are not the usual route to the position for which you're applying.
You're changing fields.
You want to combine experience from paid jobs, activities or volunteer work, and courses to show the extent of your experience in administration, finance, speaking, etc.
Your recent work history may create the wrong impression (e.g., it has gaps, shows a demotion, shows job-hopping, etc.).

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A skills résumé

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In a Web résumé, omit

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street addresses and phone numbers, consider having links to parts of the résumé, and proofread carefully.

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To create a ? “plain vanilla” text using industry jargon, buzzwords, and acronyms.

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scannable résumé,

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When you know that a company is hiring,

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send a solicited job letter.

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When you want a job with a company that has not announced openings,

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send a prospecting job letter.