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Effective Business Communications
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- Why Is It Important to Communicate Well?
- What Is Communication?
- Communication in Context
- Business Ethics and Your Responsibilities as a Communicator
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- 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.
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Delivering Your Message: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
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- 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
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- 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.
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3
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Understanding your Audience
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- Self-Understanding Is Fundamental to Communication
- Perception and Differences in Perception
- Getting to Know Your Audience
- Listening and Reading for Understanding
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- 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.
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Effective Business Writing
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- Oral versus Written Communication
- How Is Writing Learned?
- Good Writing
- Style in Written Communication
- Principles of Written Communication
- Overcoming Barriers to Effective Written Communication
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- 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.
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5
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Writing Preparation
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- 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
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- 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.
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Writing
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- Organization
- Writing Style
- Making an Argument
- Paraphrase and Summary versus Plagiarism
- Ethics and Content Selection
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- 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.
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Revising and Presenting your Writing
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- General and Specific Revision Points to Consider
- Style Revisions
- Evaluating the Work of Others
- Proofreading and Design Evaluation
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- 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.
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Feedback in the Writing Process
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- Diverse Forms of Feedback
- Qualitative and Quantitative Research
- Feedback as an Opportunity
- How am I Doing?
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- 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.
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Business Writing in Action
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- Text, Email, Netiquette and Negative Emails
- Memorandums and Letters
- Business Proposal
- Report
- Résumé and Cover Letter
- Sales Message
- Crisis Communication Plan
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- 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.
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Communication to Inform
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- Functions of Communication to Inform
- Types of Communication to Inform
- Adapting Your Presentation to Teach
- Diverse Types of Intelligence and Learning Preferences
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- 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.
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Communication to Persuade
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- 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
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- 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.
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Communicating to Varied Audiences: Intercultural and Intergenerational Communication
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- 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
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- 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.
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Group Communication, Teamwork and Leadership
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- 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
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- 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.
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Final Assessment and Self Reflection
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