Rob Michals
Aaron Isakson
Chapter 18
This chapter discussed the ways to communicate through emails, memos, and letters. When leaving a message or email for someone, there are several notable factors that can affect the outcome of what they will think, and how they will reply. Knowing who you are addressing, stating the urgency, and the typographical correctness can play an important role in your tone to the audience. We all use notes and email throughout the day, and most of us probably do not realize how we address different people. A professor would receive a more formal email than if I were to send one to a friend. Email is the most common form of electronic messages. There are many rules of etiquette that are used in emails. Page 648 gives a few pointers on how to properly write a formal email. Simple and direct language is how formal straight forward emails should be written.
When writing try to replace the word "I" or "we" since these terms draw more attention to the writer instead of the intended topic. Instead of using "I/we" use "you" thus the intended topic will translate through to the reader. Also avoid all forms of biased language, for example instead of fireman use firefighter. There are some very good example on page 653 of our Technical Communications textbook. The organization of information is very important, these three guidelines will aide the writers organization skills, they are: disseminating information, making requests or inquiries, responding to requests or inquiries. Basically identify the who, what, why, where, when, and how within the information. Get to the point and lead the audience down the logical path without clouding the learning process with useless jargon. Pages 672-674 in our textbook show a great example of all of these topics.
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9 comments:
As chapter 18 describes, correspondence is a very important part of everday communication. Becoming aware of how to prepare correspondence will only help you in the long run, preparing you to become more professional at work, at home, and in everday situations.
I have witnessed myself growing stronger and more professional over the last few years with my communication. I have become more aware of how I should speak and act in specific situations. Reading this chapter has reinforced what I have learned previously about professionalism.
Correspondence is something that we do almost everyday and one that we’re all most familiar with are e-mails. It’s very important to take into consideration the person this e-mail (or types of correspondences) is being sent to and also the content you want to portray. There were several guidelines to follow in the book that were extremely helpful and something that I’ll probably use now and in the future. One area of the book that I thought was very helpful was the “Organization of Information” on page 653. These served as checklists for me in order to make my correspondence effective.
I’ve found that the tone of my correspondences is different depending upon who the e-mail is coming from. Obviously it’s less formal to talk to a friend or relative. But throughout college I’ve found that some professors don’t send formal e-mails and others require your e-mails to be formal. I’ve experienced some professors using online jargon (smiley faces, “lol”) it all just depends upon the person. I thought they did a good job summarizing this chapter; it was short and to the point.
Chapter 18 talks about preparing correspondence. Correspondence can be sent in a form of a paper, and electronic. Electronic correspondence should have headings, content, audiences, and conventions. Writting e-mail messages have been easy for me because I have been writting them for a long time. Most of the time, I just write them to my friends and my professors too.
E-mail, memos, and other professional forms of communication are key especially in the professional world. I have always been taught that when sending something to a peer it is okay to have spelling errors and other things. But when e-mailing, or sending letters to others, then it is important to be professional and correct. It is important to do that because that is how you are seen and how you are responded to also.
I thought this chapter was significant. It amazes me how often people will write emails at work and or memos and are not careful as to who could read thelm and that even though they are deleted they still exist. I thought Burnett brought up important points of what to watch for and to use appropriate lanaguage.
I really liked how this summary was written. When I send an e-mail I often don't consider the format. I think this information will help my formal writing. I also think it is very important to leave out bias in professional e-mails.
This chapter informed me of how professional you must be when you consider who may see your emails. If it is only a friend being informal can be appropriate at times. But if you consider that an employer or other businesses may see your informalness, they may take that to heart and consider that to be your personality and may not see you as a professional person.
This is a good chapter. It is true that correspondence is a neccessary part of being a professional. Relaying messages promptly and recieving feedback in a timely manner can make even a big operation run like a well oiled machine. I think everyone appreciates some input from team members and getting in the habit of daily correspondence builds relationship framework and trust between coworkers. This is especially true in our lifetime where e-mail has become the golden rule. Its good food for thought and something that we all share experience in.
I found this chapter extremely useful. Like most people, I write emails at home, work, and school. Reading this chapter will assist me in better communications with friends, family, co-workers, and professors. The rules of etiquette (or "netiquette") for emails and their headings, content, the audience, and conventions used were informative-there are a few people I would not mind having that information too! An email that has been FW too many times or has too many spelling/grammatical errors can be very annoying and DIstracting!
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