Business Communication

Business Communication

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$79

Business Communication

Transferrable Credits

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Business Communication $79
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Membership
$99
Total $ 178
All courses include:
  • eTextbooks
  • 2 to 3-day turnaround for grading
  • Multiple chances to improve course grade
  • On-demand tutoring & writing center
  • Student support 7 days a week
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About this course.

BUS105

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Business Communication

Business Communication examines the principles of communication in the workplace. This online college course is designed to increase your writing skills to gain greater mastery of grammar, mechanics, and style. Discover important aspects and techniques for writing informational, persuasive, sales, employment, and both positive and negative news communications.

ACE Approved 2022

Outcomes

After completing this course students will be able to:

Explore how to effectively communicate in a 21st century workplace environment, and within a variety of business contexts.

Design a variety of business communication documents, including a yes/no email, persuasive business memo, résumé and mini professional profile, written cover-letter, and video cover letter/extended elevator pitch with a written communication self-reflection.

Formulate effective communication choices about tone, style, audience, and form; successfully implement these choices within a wide-range of business communications.

Create professionally compelling, multimodal content across a variety of traditional and new media.

Demonstrate effective business writing skills, including clarity, concision, and correctness.

Curate, analyze, and integrate credible research into business communications.

Demonstrate an awareness of business ethics, and the communicative choices that guide both ethical and logical decisions.

Apply communication strategies to understand intercultural and intergenerational communication, prejudice, and ethnocentrism.

Integrate appropriate formatting to business documents, including headings, design, documentation, and multimodal components.

Analyze business communication choices, reflecting on areas of strength and opportunities for growth.

TOPIC LESSON TOPIC SUBTOPICS OBJECTIVES
1 Effective Business Communications
  • Why Is It Important to Communicate Well?
  • What Is Communication?
  • Communication in Context
  • Business Ethics and Your Responsibilities as a Communicator
  • Recognize the importance of communication in gaining a better understanding of yourself and others.
  • Explore how communication skills help you solve problems, learn new things, and build your career.
  • Define communication, and describe communication as a process.
  • Identify and describe the eight essential components of communication.
  • Identify and describe models of communication.
  • Learn types of communication contexts.
  • Explore several examples of each of the two main responsibilities of a business communicator.
2 Delivering Your Message: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
  • What Is Language?
  • Messages
  • Principles of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
  • Language Can be an Obstacle to Communication
  • Nonverbal Communication in Digital Workspaces
  • Visual Aids
  • Improving Verbal Communication
  • Define language and the role of language in perception and the communication process.
  • Describe different parts of a message and their functions.
  • Describe how language serves to shape our experience of reality.
  • Demonstrate ways in which language can be an obstacle or barrier to communication.
  • Explore the differences between clichés, jargon, and slang.
  • Demonstrate the effective use of visuals in an oral or written presentation.
  • Understand how to assess the audience, choose an appropriate tone, and check for understanding and results in an oral or written presentation.
  • Explore nonverbal communication and describe its role in the digital workspaces.
  • Learn how to use visual aids effectively in your presentation.
3 Understanding your Audience
  • Self-Understanding Is Fundamental to Communication
  • Perception and Differences in Perception
  • Getting to Know Your Audience
  • Listening and Reading for Understanding
  • Understand the factors that contribute to self-concept.
  • Explore how the self-fulfilling prophecy works.
  • Learn the concept of perception.
  • Explore the process of selection and the factors that influence it.
  • Explain how interpretation influences our perceptions.
  • Determine how perception differs between people.
  • Describe three ways to better understand and reach your audience.
  • Explore the importance of becoming an active listener and reader.
4 Effective Business Writing
  • Oral versus Written Communication
  • How Is Writing Learned?
  • Good Writing
  • Style in Written Communication
  • Principles of Written Communication
  • Overcoming Barriers to Effective Written Communication
  • Explore how written communication is similar to oral communication, and how it is different.
  • Explain how reading, writing, and critical thinking contribute to becoming a good writer.
  • Explore six basic qualities that characterize good business writing.
  • Understand the rhetorical elements and cognate strategies that contribute to good writing.
  • Learn the appropriate use of colloquial, casual, and formal writing in at least one document of each style.
  • Understand the rules that govern written language.
  • Understand the legal implications of business writing.
  • Explore some common barriers to written communication and how to overcome them.
5 Writing Preparation
  • Think, Then Write: Writing Preparation
  • A Planning Checklist for Business Messages
  • Research and Investigation: Getting Started
  • Ethics, Plagiarism, and Reliable Sources
  • Completing Your Research and Investigation
  • Reading and Analyzing
  • Explore why preparation is important in business writing.
  • Think critically to overcome common fears of writing
  • Understand who, what, where, when, why, and how as features of writing purpose.
  • Analyze the planning process and essential elements of a business document.
  • Compare and contrast ways of knowing your reading audience.
  • Understand how to be ethical, avoid plagiarism, and use reputable sources in your writing.
6

Writing

  • Organization
  • Writing Style
  • Making an Argument
  • Paraphrase and Summary versus Plagiarism
  • Ethics and Content Selection 
  • Understand how to develop and organize content in patterns that are appropriate for your document and audience.
  • Explore how to compose logically organized paragraphs, sentences, and transitions in one or more written assignments.
  • Explore how to prepare and present information using a writing style that will increase understanding, retention, and motivation to act.
  • Learn how to form a clear argument with appropriate support to persuade your audience.
  • Recognize and understand inherent weaknesses in fallacies.
  • Understand the difference between paraphrasing or summarizing and plagiarism.
  • Understand how to give proper credit to sources that are quoted verbatim, and sources whose ideas are paraphrased or summarized.
  • Understand the importance of ethical research in developing your topic.
7 Revising and Presenting your Writing
  • General and Specific Revision Points to Consider
  • Style Revisions
  • Evaluating the Work of Others
  • Proofreading and Design Evaluation
  • Understand the process and purpose of revision.
  • Learn three general elements of every document that require revision.
  • Explore six specific elements of every document to check for revision.
  • Understand the difference between revising and proofreading, and how to use proofreading marks.
  • Learn six design elements for evaluation.
8 Feedback in the Writing Process
  • Diverse Forms of Feedback
  • Qualitative and Quantitative Research
  • Feedback as an Opportunity
  • How am I Doing?
  • Describe feedback as part of the writing process.
  • Compare and contrast the feedback that can be obtained with qualitative and quantitative research.
  • Explore validity, reliability, and statistical significance.
  • Describe the five types of feedback identified by Carl Rogers.
  • Understand the importance of feedback, even if it is negative.
  • Describe the effective use of open- and closed-ended questions.
9 Business Writing in Action
  • Text, Email, Netiquette and Negative Emails
  • Memorandums and Letters
  • Business Proposal
  • Report
  • Résumé and Cover Letter
  • Sales Message
  • Crisis Communication Plan
  • Recognize the role of text messaging in business communication.
  • Explore the appropriate use of netiquette.
  • Understand the purpose and format of a memo.
  • Explore effective strategies for business memos.
  • Learn effective strategies to use in a business proposal.
  • Explore the main parts of a report.
  • Understand the different types of reports.
  • Explore the differences among functional, reverse chronological, combination, targeted, and scannable résumés.
  • Explore what features are required in each type of résumé.
  • Understand how to prepare a crisis communication plan.
  • Write an effective Yes/No email.
10 Communication to Inform 
  • Functions of Communication to Inform
  • Types of Communication to Inform
  • Adapting Your Presentation to Teach
  • Diverse Types of Intelligence and Learning Preferences
  • Understand the functions of communication to inform.
  • Learn the difference between exposition and interpretation.
  • Analyze what an audience-centered perspective is.
  • Learn examples of ways to facilitate active listening.
  • Learn the concepts of multiple intelligences and learning styles, and identify different types of intelligence and learning styles that audience members may have.
  • Explore ways to incorporate ethics in a speech.
  • Draft an exploratory informational report with research.
11 Communication to Persuade
  • What Is Persuasion?
  • Principles of Persuasion
  • Functions of the Presentation to Persuade
  • Meeting the Audience’s Basic Needs
  • Making an Argument
  • Communicating Ethically and Avoiding Fallacies
  • Elevator Speech

 
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of persuasion.
  • Describe similarities and differences between persuasion and motivation.
  • Explore how to use six principles of persuasion.
  • Learn the effective use of five functions of communicating to persuade.
  • Identify several basic needs that people seek to fulfill when they communicate.
  • Learn the three components of an argument.
  • Explore examples of emotional appeals.
  • Demonstrate the importance of ethics as part of the persuasion process.
  • Explore examples of eight common fallacies in persuasive communication.
  • Learn the basic parts of an elevator speech.
  • Draft a persuasive business memo.
12 Communicating to Varied Audiences: Intercultural and Intergenerational Communication
  • Intercultural Communication
  • Intergenerational Communication
  • Changing Demographics
  • Strategies for Effective Communication
  • Common Cultural Characteristics
  • Divergent Cultural Characteristics
  • International Communication and the Global Marketplace
  • Styles of Management
  • Define how to facilitate intercultural and intergenerational communication.
  • Define the effects of ethnocentrism.
  • Learn strategies to understand intercultural and intergenerational communication, prejudice, and ethnocentrism.
  • Understand the concept of common cultural characteristics.
  • Explore divergent cultural characteristics.
  • Explore international and the global marketplace communication, including political, legal, economic, and ethical systems.
  • Draft a résumé and mini-professional profile.
13 Group Communication, Teamwork and Leadership
  • Workspaces: Then and Now–A Comparative Analysis
  • Communication Benefits of Different Work Environments
  • Flexing Strategies in the Workplace
  • What Is a Group?
  • Group Problem Solving
  • Using Technology to Facilitate Meetings
  • Organizational Communication
  • Collaboration in the 21st Century Workplace
  • Review workspaces of then and now.
  • Analyze the benefits of differing work environments.
  • Understand flexing strategies in the workplace.
  • Understand groups and teams.
  • Explore how primary and secondary groups meet our interpersonal needs.
  • Identify how to implement seven steps for group problem solving.
  • Understand how to prepare for and conduct business meetings using available technology.
  • Understand how to use technology to aid in group communications.
  • Understand the basic principles of organizational communication.
  • Learn what the 21st century workplace is like and how it functions.
  • Compose a written cover letter/extended elevator pitch designed for a professional position in a workspace.
14 Final Assessment and Self Reflection    


There are no prerequisites to take Business Communication.



The required eTextbook for this course is included with your course purchase at no additional cost.

A derivative from the original work: "Business Communication for Success," by Scott McLean, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 / .


Your score provides a percentage score and letter grade for each course. A passing percentage is 70% or higher.

There are a total of 1000 points in the course

TOPIC ASSESSMENT POINTS AVAILABLE
2 Reading Check: Topics 1-2 30
4 Reading Check: Topics 3-4 30
6 Reading Check: Topics 5-6 30
8 Reading Check: Topics 7-8 30
9 Yes/No Email 140
10 Informational Report with Research 140
11 Persuasive Business Memo 140
12 Résumé & Mini Professional Profile 140
13 Written Cover Letter 140
14 Final: Video Cover Letter & Written Reflection 180
Total 1000

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