Student Self Test:

1. What are the three steps in the writing process?

2. What two types of purposes do all business messages have?

3. What do you need to know in order to develop an audience profile?

4. How can you test the thoroughness of the information you include in a message?

5. What is media richness and how is it determined?

6. What is the “you” attitude and how does it differ from an “I” attitude?

7. Why is it important to establish your credibility when communicating with an audience of strangers?

8. How does using bias-free language help communicators to establish a good relationship with their audiences?

9. What are the main advantages of oral communication? Or written media?

10. What is boilerplate, and how is it used?

Exercises for HW questions:

1. General Question. Some writers argue that planning messages wastes time because they inevitably change their plans as they go along. How would you respond to this argument? Briefly explain.

2. Ethical choices. The company president has asked you to draft a memo to the board of directors informing them that sales in the newly acquired line of gourmet fruit jams have far exceeded anyone’s expectations. As purchasing director, you happen to know that sales of moderately priced jams have declined substantially (many customers have switched to the more expensive jams). You were not directed to add that tidbit of information. What should you do?

3. Adapting Messages; Media and Purpose. List five messages you have received lately, such as direct-mail promotions, letters, e-mail messages, phone solicitations, and lectures. For each, determine the general and then the specific purpose, then for each, answer the following questions: a) Was the message well timed? b) Did the sender choose an appropriate medium for the message? c) Did the appropriate person deliver the message? d) Was the sender’s purpose realistic?

4. Planning Messages: Audience profile

For each of the communication tasks below, write brief answers to these three questions: Who is my audience? What is my audience’s general attitude toward my subject? What does my audience need to know?

a. A final-notice collection letter from an appliance manufacturer to an appliance dealer, sent 10 days before initiating legal collection procedures.

b. An unsolicited sales letter asking readers to purchase computer disks at near wholesale prices.

c. An advertisement for peanut butter.

d. Fliers to be attached to doorknobs in the neighborhood announcing reduced rates for window washing.

e. A cover letter sent along with your resume to a potential employer.

f. A request to the seller for a price adjustment on a piano that incurred NT$8000 in damage during delivery to a banquet room in a hotel you manage.

5. Audience Relationship: Courteous Communications. Substitute a better phrase for each of the following:

a. You claim that
b. It is not our policy to
c. You neglected to
d. In which you assert
e. We are sorry you are dissatisfied.
f. You failed to enclose
g. We request that you send us
h. Apparently, you overlooked our terms
i. We have been very patient
j. We are at a loss to understand

6. Audience Relationship: Emphasize the Positive. Provide euphemisms for the following words and phrases:

a. stubborn
b. wrong
c. stupid
d. incompetent
e. loudmouth