Course Snapshot for BUS217 - Business Communication and Report Writing

Module 1 Learning Outcomes

• List eight key steps to finding the ideal opportunity in today's job market.
• Explain the process of planning your résumé, including how to choose the best résumé organization.
• Describe the tasks involved in writing your résumé, and list the major sections of a traditional résumé.
• Characterize the completing step for résumés, including the six most common formats in which you can produce a résumé.
• Explain the purposes of application letters, and describe how to apply the AIDA. organizational approach to them
• Describe the typical sequence of job interviews, the major types of interviews, and what employers look for during an interview.
• List six tasks you need to complete to prepare for a successful job interview.
• Explain how to succeed in all three stages of an interview.
• Indentify the most common employment messages that follow an interview, and explain when you would use each one.

Module 2 Learning Outcomes

• Explain the importance of effective communication to your career and to the companies where you will work.
• Describe the communication skills employers will expect you to have and the nature of communicating in an organization by using an audience-centered approach.
• Describe the communication process model and the ways that social media are changing the nature of business communication.
• List four general guidelines for using communication technology effectively.
• Define ethics; explain the difference between an ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse; and, list six guidelines for making ethical communication choices.
• List the advantages and disadvantages of working in teams; describe the characteristics of effective teams; and, highlight four key issues of group dynamics.
• Offer guidelines for collaborative communication; identify major collaboration technologies; and, explain how to give constructive feedback.
• List the key steps needed to ensure productive team meetings.
• Identify the major technologies used to enhance or replace in-person meetings.
• Identify three major modes of listening; describe the listening process; and, explain the problem of selective listening.
• Explain the importance of nonverbal communication, and identify six major categories of nonverbal expression.
• Explain the importance of business etiquette, and identify three key areas in which good etiquette is essential.
• Discuss the opportunities and challenges of intercultural communication.
• Define culture; explain how culture is learned; and, define ethnocentrism and stereotyping.
• List four general guidelines for adapting to any business culture.
• Identify seven steps you can take to improve your intercultural communication skills.

Module 3 Learning Outcomes

• Describe the three-step writing process.
• Explain why it's important to analyze a communication situation in order to define your purpose and profile your audience before writing a message.
• Discuss information-gathering options for simple messages, and identify three attributes of quality information.
• List the factors to consider when choosing the most appropriate medium for a message.
• Explain why good organization is important to both you and your audience, and list the tasks involved in organizing a message.
• Identify the four aspects of being sensitive to audience needs when writing business messages.
• Explain how establishing your credibility and projecting your company's image are vital aspects of building strong relationships with your audience.
• Explain how to achieve a tone that is conversational but businesslike; explain the value of using plain language; and, define active and passive voice.
• Describe how to select words that are not only correct but are also effective.
• Define the four types of sentences, and explain how sentence style affects emphasis within a message.
• Define the three key elements of a paragraph, and list five ways to develop unified, coherent paragraphs.
• Identify the most common software features that help you craft messages more efficiently.
• Discuss the value of careful revision, and describe the tasks involved in evaluating your first drafts and the work of other writers.
• List four techniques you can use to improve the readability of your messages.
• Describe eight steps you can take to improve the clarity of your writing, and give four tips on making your writing more concise.
• List four principles of effective design, and explain the role of major design elements in document readability.
• Explain the importance of proofreading, and give eight tips for successful proofreading.
• Discuss the most important issues to consider when distributing your messages.

Module 4 Learning Outcomes

1. Identify the electronic media available for short messages; list nine compositional modes used in electronic media; and, discuss the challenges of communicating through social media.
2. Describe the use of social networks, user-generated content sites, community Q&A sites, and community participation sites in business communication.
3. Describe the evolving role of email in business communication, and explain how to adapt the three-step writing process to email messages.
4. Describe the benefits of instant messaging (IM), and identify guidelines for effective IM in the workplace.
5. Describe the role of blogging and microblogging in the business communication today, and explain how to adapt the three-step writing process to blogging.
6. Explain how to adapt the three-step writing process to podcasting.
7. Outline an effective strategy for writing routine business requests.
8. Describe three common types of routine requests.
9. Outline an effective strategy for writing routine replies and positive messages.
10. Describe six common types of routine replies and positive messages.
11. Apply the three-step writing process to negative messages.
12. Explain how to use the direct approach effectively when conveying negative news.
13. Explain how to use the indirect approach effectively when conveying negative news.
14. Explain the importance of maintaining high standards of ethics and etiquette when delivering negative messages.
15. Describe successful strategies for sending negative messages on routine business matters.
16. List the important points to consider when conveying negative organizational news.
17. Describe successful strategies for sending negative employment-related messages.
18. Apply the three-step writing process to persuasive messages.
19. Describe an effective strategy for developing persuasive business messages, and identify the three most common categories of persuasive business messages.
20. Explain how to modify your approach when writing promotional messages for social media.
21. Identify steps you can take to avoid ethical lapses in marketing and sales messages.

Module 5 Learning Outcomes

1. Adapt the three-step writing process to reports and proposals.
2. Describe an effective process for conducting business research; explain how to evaluate the credibility of an information source; and, identify the five ways to use research results.
3. Explain the role of secondary research, and describe the two major categories of online research tools.
4. Explain the role of primary research, and identify the two most common forms of primary research for business communication purposes.
5. Explain how to plan informal reports and website content.
6. Identify the three most common ways to organize analytical reports.
7. Explain how to plan proposals.
8. Explain how to adapt to your audiences when writing reports and proposals, and describe the choices involved in drafting report and proposal content.
9. Discuss six principles of graphic design; and, identify the most common types of visuals used to present data, information, concepts, and ideas.
10. Explain how to integrate visuals with text effectively and how to verify the quality of your visuals.
11. Describe the process of revising formal reports and proposals.
12. Identify the major components of formal reports.
13. Identify the major components of formal proposals.
14. Describe an effective plan for proofreading reports and proposals.
15. Describe the decision process for distributing reports and proposals.
16. Highlight the importance of presentations in your business career and explain how to adapt the planning step of the three-step process to presentations.
17. Describe the tasks involved in developing a presentation after completing the planning step.
18. Describe the six major design and writing tasks required to enhance your presentation with effective visuals.
19. Outline four major tasks involved in completing a presentation.
20. Describe four important aspects of delivering a presentation in today's social media environment.