18 Jan As you complete your final

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 1 Discussion

DQ1 Considering communication barriers and inhibitors

This discussion topic is designed to help you start thinking about and planning for the first writing assignment, the Communication Inhibitors Report. It includes four very helpful readings about communication barriers/inhibitors.

NOTE: This is not your first writing assignment. This is a discussion topic designed to help you begin thinking about the first writing assignment.

This week, one of your reading materials is titled, “Oral Versus Written Communication.” This reading material lists the eight essential elements of communication. They are as follows:

Source

Receiver

Message

Channel

Feedback

Environment

Context

Interference

In addition, you will want to access and read through the following three articles about communication inhibitors.

MSG Team, “Communication Barriers”

Pandita, “Physical Barriers in Communication”

Jain, “The Barriers to Effective Communication”

These items are available as eReserves in our class in LEO. You can access the articles by taking the following steps:

• click Content

• select Class Resources

• select eReserves

• select the icon for eReserves in the middle of your page.

• in the list of items that appears, locate the articles and download them

Finally, you will download and read the instructions for your first writing assignment, “Communication Inhibitors Report.”

After you have completed reading “Oral Versus Written Communication,” have reviewed the three articles on communication barriers, and have reviewed the instructions for writing assignment #1, please respond to this discussion topic by completing the following tasks:

1) decide which communication barrier(s) you believe are most powerfully affecting your communication process in the workplace or community scenario that you are considering for your assignment;

2) write a paragraph or two in which you explain how and why you think these barriers are the main culprits negatively affecting successful communication.

3) Offer one classmate feedback on his/her post noting similarities or differences that you find interesting compared to the situation you described in your own post.

DQ2 Communicating a Problem

This discussion topic, which explores business communication as a problem-solving activity, asks you to select and analyze a problem or situation in your workplace or your community. The problem or situation you discuss in this activity could turn out to be the focal point of the capstone assignment in this course, the Research-Based Report. A detailed example of how to respond to this discussion topic is provided.

This discussion topic is designed to help you consider a problem in your workplace or community and to design strategies in communicating about it. This discussion topic might help you approach your final research-based report in WRTG 394.

Please think of an example of a problem or situation in your workplace or your community. Then answer the following four questions with regard to that problem or situation. Post your answers to this discussion topic.

What is the problem or situation?

What are some possible communication strategies in notifying someone about the problem?

What is the best course of action to take in solving the problem?

What is the best way to communicate this problem to the relevant individuals?

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 2 Discussion

DQ1 The six principles of good writing in light of Amazon’s strategy

In the Content for week 2, you are reading a section titled “Good Writing.” In that section, Edward Bailey’s six points of good writing are listed.

Please take note of Bailey’s six points of good writing. Then access the following message from Jeff Bezos to shareholders at Amazon.com:

Read: Message from Jeff Bezos to Amazon Shareholders

(The message is also available in your list of resources in Content for week 2.)

Please read only the section of this message titled, “Six-Page Narratives.” You don’t have to read the whole message.

Then answer the following questions:

In banning PowerPoint and asking for six-page memos, is Jeff Bezos violating any of Bailey’s six principles? If so, which ones does he seem to violate, and why do you make the case that he violates them? If not, explain why his strategy does not violate any of the six principles.

Why might Bezos prefer a six-page memo read silently for 30 minutes at the beginning of a meeting to a PowerPoint presentation? What advantage might such a memo have over a PowerPoint presentation?

Please feel free to conduct your own searches on this issue. Various articles have been written about Amazon’s ban of PowerPoint in its internal meetings, and these articles have additional quotes from Bezos.

DQ2 Exercises on library tutorials #1, #2, and #3

Through this Library Exercise, you will practice the OneSearch techniques covered in the Library Tutorial Videos. This will help you understand how to find sources for assignment #2 and other assignments. When it comes to honing your research skills for the assignments in this course, as in all other aspects of life, practice makes perfect!

The following task is designed to help you become familiar with UMUC’s Information and Library Services. Completing these exercises will help you get started on developing a topic for the final research-based report.

Please watch library tutorial #1, video tutorial #2, and video tutorial #3. These tutorials are linked to at the top of the list of Content items for this week. The tutorials are designed to demonstrate some searching strategies when finding articles through OneSearch, a research tool that allows you to search on many databases at one time.

After you have watched the tutorials, please complete the following tasks. Post your responses to this conference thread.

Let us assume you work for a company that is hiring more and more employees of the Generation Z generation.

Your supervisor has asked you to conduct research on issues regarding employees from Generation Z. For example, she mentions that Generation Z individuals may have different expectations of the work environment from those of workers from older generations. In addition, she mentions that Generation Z has different habits with regard to their use of technology than workers from older generations exhibit.

The instructions you have been given by your supervisor are quite broad. But let us assume that this is the directive you have been given.

For this reason, you will conduct a very general search on Generation Z and their work or technology habits. You are not quite sure how to focus the topic, but you know that you would like to pursue this general topic and focus it later.

1. Using the strategies discussed in library video tutorial #1, search on some terms and find four articles on this topic. Your search can be quite broad at this stage. Try to use some search phrases that require that you use quotation marks, as the video demonstrates.

Please write the topic on which you searched and the search terms you used to search on it.

2. Again, using the strategies from library video tutorial #1, for the four articles you found, please write titles of the four articles and the journals in which they appeared. You don’t have to cite anything in APA format, or anything of that nature. Just post the titles and the journal names.

3. Using the strategies discussed in library video tutorial #2, conduct a new search on a phrase related to your major or to a workplace topic of interest to you. As the video demonstrates, make sure to use quotation marks around the phrase you search on.

-What phrase(s) did you search on?

-How many search results do you get?

4. Then, applying the tips in library video tutorial #2, focus your search from question #2 by using the SU-subject terms option from the drop-down menu for one of the rows.

-How many search results do you find after limiting the search by using SU-subject terms?

5. Finally, using the strategies mentioned in library video tutorial #3, locate the research guide for your major. If you have not declared a major yet, please select one that interests you from the options from the drop-down menu.

Peruse the research guide for that major. Describe to the rest of the class in a few sentences any interesting resources you discovered.

If you have the same major as another student in the class, this would be a great time to collaborate and share any resources you found with which others might not be familiar.

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 3 Discussion

To succeed on the Synthesis Literature Review, you need to know what it means to synthesize sources and how synthesizing is different from writing an annotated bibliography. In this discussion, you will write two short paragraphs explaining these two points. This activity reinforces the writing concepts demonstrated in the sample paper and video review of Tom Student’s paper described above.

NOTE: This is not your second writing assignment. This is a discussion topic designed to help you understand the second writing assignment.

To complete your assignment, go to the Assignment area and review the assignment directions, then complete and submit your draft of the assignment in your assignment folder.

The following task is designed to help you understand WA#2, the background review and synthesis of the literature for the topic of your research-based report.

For this discussion topic, please complete the following:

Read through the sample essay for WA#2. In addition, watch the video on strategies for WA#2.

In your own words, explain what it means to synthesize sources in a paper.

How is synthesizing different from writing an annotated bibliography?

You may write a short paragraph for your answer to each question.

Once you have done this, you should immediately do the following:

* Go to the Content area of the LEO WRTG 394 classroom which you can reach by clicking on the link at the top of this page.

* Click on “Week 2” in the list of Content links on the left side of the page.

* Watch the “Synthesis Literature Review” video by clicking the link that appears once you click on “Week 2.”

* Then look at the sample synthesis literature review paper by clicking on the link just below the link to the video. (If the paper is off centered, click the link with the arrow pointing to the upper right – when you hover over it, it will say “Open in a new window.” You can then see the paper in a window with the paper centered and easy to read.)

DQ2 Examining a sample report from Victoria Business School

After reading the assigned pages from the Victoria Business School’s “Example of a Finished Report,” you will answer a series of questions. Your responses should run 1-2 sentences per question. These questions will help you prepare for your own business report. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

Please download the document, “How to Write a Business Report,” from Victoria University. The document is linked to in Content for Week 3.

Please access page 26 of the document, “An Example of a Finished Report.”

You will peruse the report, which covers pages 27-41.

Please respond to this discussion topic by answering the following questions. Your answers can be 1-2 sentences:

What problem is the author addressing?

Where in the report does the author cite secondary research? You can mention one or two pages.

What types of primary research the author cite in the report? You can give one or two examples.

Consider your research-based report for this class. What problem might you address in your workplace, school, or community?

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 4 Discussion

DQ1 analyzing a sample final report — “L’Amore USA”

Read the assigned sample report and then answer the accompanying questions. The questions will ask you to critique the report, apply course concepts, and consider how the report might be revised. Recognizing the strengths and areas for revision on this sample will help you develop your own report. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

Please peruse the sample research-based report, “L’Amore.” You can access it from Content for Week 4.

Then answer the following questions.

The author of this paper connected writing assignment #1 to writing assignment #4. What evidence do you see that the author made this connection?

Analyze the graphic on page 5. Do you think it could be improved? How? If you don’t think it needs improvement, comment on why you think it is a strong graphic in its current form.

Which type of research—secondary research or primary research—helps this report more? Please pick one of these two choices. Then write a couple of sentences explaining your answer.

On page 5, the author writes, “After the survey was completed the facilitator met with the participants requesting their feedback on the format and clarity of each example.” Based on this sentence, some additional analysis could have been integrated into the paper. What additional analysis could have been integrated? And please explain how it might have strengthened the report.

DQ2 Preparing a Research Report Proposal

This discussion will enable you to plan for the third writing assignment. For this discussion, you will propose some problem you wish to solve, either in the workplace or your community, as well as a target audience—specifically the decision-maker that you will eventually write to. Be sure to read the complete directions for more details. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

NOTE: This is not your third writing assignment. This is a discussion topic that is designed to help prepare you for the third writing assignment.

To complete your assignment, you will access the Assignments area and review the assignment directions. Then you will complete and submit your draft of the assignment in your assignment folder.

Your third assignment in WRTG 394 involves writing a memo requesting permission to conduct research on the topic for your research report. You should focus on the following as you prepare your report:

Being specific – your assignment directions (located in the assignment area of the classroom) give you good examples of ways in which you can make sure that you are proposing a solution to a specific problem. You must answer the question, “How will MY workplace or community (this should be narrowly defined as your neighborhood, apartment community, base housing community, etc.) be made better by the solution(s) I recommend?”

Identify a specific decision maker (or makers if, for example, you are proposing a solution to a workplace issue in your department that might require action by the HR director as well as your dept. head). Examples of such persons might be your apartment community manager, the director of base housing where you are stationed, your department head in your workplace, or your commander for your military unit.

Use some primary research – interviews with co-workers, photographs showing a problem like the need for recycling or going to a paperless office, screen captures showing the large numbers of emails employees must deal with on a daily basis.

This assignment can be invaluable to you in preparing for your research report. Note what the assignment directions say:

You will find that writing up the proposal will be invaluable in eventually putting together your final research-based report. You will be able to apply the scholarly research you conducted for writing assignment #2 to your specific proposal and evidence of the problem that you have gathered for writing assignment #3.

For this discussion topic, please respond with a paragraph in which you describe the topic you are proposing and the audience (the decision maker(s) mentioned above;

Please respond to at least one classmate’s post.

Please note that you will not be able to see other students’ responses to this discussion topic until you post your response.

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 5 Discussion

DQ1 Analyzing a sample report, “Evening Shades”

In this discussion, you will re-write a sample executive summary by applying the style and structure from the Victoria Business School Report (from Week 3). You will also critique the summary’s use of research. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

Please examine the sample research-based report, Evening Shades.”

Then answer the following questions.

1. Examine the executive summary. Please re-write the executive summary using the example from the Victoria Business School from week 3. In other words, read over the executive summary from the report in the document from the Victoria Business School. Then rewrite the executive summary for the “Evening Shades” report in similar fashion to that of the Victoria Business School report.

2. Look at the sources listed. How could the sources be improved upon? You can write one or two sentences in answering this question.

DQ2 Preparing to write the Research-Based Report

This discussion asks you to review course materials, and then answer questions regarding the format of your upcoming business report, its research needs, and its length. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

NOTE: This is not a writing assignment. This is a discussion topic designed to help prepare you for writing assignment #4, the Research-Based Business Report. . To complete your assignment, you will go to the Assignments area and review the assignment directions, then complete and submit your draft of the assignment in your assignment folder.

For week 5, you will want to review the following reading materials.

From Business Communication for Success, Chapter 9, section 9.4, “Report”

“How to write a business report,” from Victoria University of Wellington. Click here to access this document.

Colorado State University offers a fine website on advice for writing business reports. Click here to access it.

From the eReserves in our class: Forsyth, P.K. (2013), Making numbers clear, in How to write reports and proposals, third edition.

In addition, please watch the video, Writing a Formal Business Report. The video is linked to at the top of the Content list for this week.

After perusing some of these materials and observing the video, please answer the following questions:

1. Do you understand the format of your research based report? Look at the list of seven sections that your assignment directions state your report must contain. State briefly which section you think will be easiest to write, which section you think might give you trouble, and which, if any, section(s) you are not sure you understand.

2. You must use seven (7) sources for this assignment. Three (3) of these must be scholarly journals. Explain the difference between a scholarly journal and any other type of source.

3. Your report must be 2000-3000 words long. How many pages would that be (you should probably think in terms of 12 point Times New Roman type)?

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 6 Discussion

Victoria Business School executive summary video

You will share a draft of an executive summary using the guidelines provided in the video, and then provide feedback on each other’s drafts.

Please watch the video, “Video review of executive summary from Victoria Business School.” It is linked to at in Content for week 6.

After watching the video, please complete the following:

Please post a draft of your executive summary for your final report. This might be a very rough draft of the executive summary. The purpose of this discussion topic is to get you started in thinking through your executive summary. Another goal of this discussion topic is to allow your fellow students to see the topic on which you are writing your report and the possible conclusions you might have come up with.

Please note that your executive summary might change quite a bit when you eventually submit a draft of your report.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure that you follow the Executive Summary format described in the video.

Please note that you will not be able to see other students’ responses to this discussion topic until you post your response.

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 7 Discussion

DQ1 Primary audience and secondary audience

You will share your understanding of primary and secondary audiences with your classmates and how this understanding impacts your business report. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

The purpose of this discussion topic is to allow you to reflect on your audience for your final research-based report and to see how your fellow students’ concept of audience may have impacted their reports.

Please respond to the following items:

Please conduct a search on the terms primary audience and secondary audience. List two sources you found and how they defined these two terms.

For your research-based report, who is the primary audience? Who is the secondary audience?

Does the secondary audience impact how you write the report? Please explain why or why not.

DQ2 Plagiarism and business/professional Writing

Contemplate the assigned reading, which complicates our understanding of plagiarism and its meaning. Then answer two assigned question about how this relates to your understanding of business writing practices. Provide feedback for two classmates’ answers.

Here is an excerpt from an article called “Plagiarism Doesn’t Bother Me” by Professor Gerald Nelms:

2. In some “real-world” contexts, plagiarism is not only acceptable but is expected. Brian Martin calls this “institutionalized plagiarism.”

Plagiarism is as tied to context as every other aspect of language use. In our everyday conversations—and lectures and classroom discussions—we frequently give information without citing its source(s). Moreover, there exist contexts where plagiarism is not only acceptable but is expected and encouraged. Audience expectations and intellectual property conventions of the community in which the language use occurs determines whether adopting source material and expression without citation is acceptable or not. “Institutional plagiarism” frequently occurs and is accepted without even the lifting of an eyebrow in most daily business communications and in other bureaucratic contexts. For example, if a company employee were to try to compose a quarterly report with original language and organization, her supervisor would probably take her aside and explain that to be more efficient, she should simply adopt the organization and language of past quarterly reports.

Some might argue that “institutionalized plagiarism” is acceptable because the language and forms being plagiarized are “common knowledge.” That may be the case in some instances of institutionalized plagiarism but not in every case. Too often, we decontextualize common knowledge, thinking of it as facts every child learns in school or as information that exists in at least five (or whatever number of) credible sources, as some textbooks have defined it. In fact, content alone does not define knowledge as “common.” Common knowledge is that which is presumed to be ubiquitous or, at least, widespread within a specific community—that is, in context. Not all institutionalized plagiarism fits that bill.

Consider, for example, the annual reports that a company will publish and distribute to its investors and creditors and auditors and public officials and anyone else who might be interested. Annual reports are notoriously templated. They follow the same organizational structure every year. They almost invariably use a similar vocabulary, the same phrases, the same sentences in many instances. Yet, no one accuses the authors, often anonymous or named in the fine print, of plagiarism. No investors divest themselves of holdings in a company because its annual report is institutionally plagiarized.

This excerpt uses two common examples of business writing in discussing ways in which information is plagiarized – or not – depending, perhaps upon the view of those in a particular business setting.

There are two worthwhile questions to consider concerning what Nelms tells us about these seemingly plagiarizing practices of business/professional writing. In a short paragraph, respond to the following:

1) Based on your experience, have you seen such practices in your work? Give an example. Why do you think this practice is rather common in business/professional writing?

2) Where do you think the practice of using the same format, even the same language, for business documents might have come from? Can you think of any examples of when you have noticed the use of what is sometimes called “boilerplate” documents and language?

Please note that you will not be able to see other students’ responses to this discussion topic until you post your response.

WRTG394 Advanced Business Writing

Week 8 Discussion

DQ1 Bad news about your report

For this assignment, you will role-play a decision-maker who has decided against the positions advanced your classmates’ memos. Before delivering the “bad news” to your classmates, make sure to review “Delivering a Negative News Message” and pay special attention to the instructions for this discussion.

You should review the link from Purdue University on “Examples of Bad News Memos” located at the top of the list of activities for this week.

Step 1: Post your research report as a Word or rtf attachment (this is so a classmate can read it);

Step 2: Choose a classmate’s research report and post a response telling him/her that you are reading his/her report – only 1 reader for each report, please;

Step 3: (Here’s the hard part – and where Chap. 17 helps). In a memo (check Week 1’s topic on standard business writing types for correct memo format), tell the person whose report you have read that the company/community/etc. WILL NOT be implementing the recommended solution to the problem he/she has proposed. You will have to be creative in offering reasons why the solution cannot be implemented (money, opposition from stock holders, higher command or management, etc., are typical reasons for such decisions). Here is a helpful explanation of how to handle such a memo:

Bad News Memos

Post your memo as your second response to the person you have chosen.

This exercise gives you practice in one of business/professional writing’s toughest tasks – saying no.

Remember, try to follow the advice that you gain from Chap. 17 in the textbook. This will make the task both a little more difficult (the actual writing task) but somewhat easier (the handling of having to say no.)

For advice and resources to help you write a successful bad news memo, see the resources in Content for Week 7.

Doing this should give you all the knowledge you need to give your classmate bad news. 🙂

DQ2 Final reflections on your executive summary

As you complete your final assignment, share your responses to a series of questions about the process of business writing and creating an executive summary. Provide feedback to your classmates’ thoughts.

Please watch the short video linked to in Content for Week 8, “Video review of executive summary for WA#4.”

Then answer the following questions.

What is proportional length? In writing your report, did you find it challenging to keep your executive summary to proportional length? If so, what challenges did you encounter?Your answers can be a short paragraph for each question.

To whom was your report addressed? Is this person or group of people likely to read your whole report? Or just the executive summary? Please explain your answer.Your answers can be a short paragraph for each question.

What was your methodology in your report? You can review the video to re-visit how the methodology could be integrated into an executive summary.