Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Chapter 18- Samantha and Julia
Correspondence includes many different types of emails, memos, and letters. When composing correspondence you have to make sure you have certain guidelines, the appropriate attitude and tone, responding to the audience, organization, format, and visual displays. Accurate and unambiguous correspondence include emails, memos, and letters. These types are the everyday communication that people use in the workplace. When delivering correspondence people sometimes have it sent by mail, but these days people use the Internet and send emails which is asynchronous correspondence. Others use instant messaging which would be synchronous correspondence. All electronic messages should be informative as if you were writing. Also these messages can be forwarded, printed, or permanently stored, or misdirected. Do not send an electronic message that you would not want everyone to read. Effective correspondence should have a descriptive subject line, address audience directly, state objectives or ask questions, organize you material in a certain order depending on positive or negative response, bullet items for clarity and neatness, make sure you are specific about action, and finally end with a friendly comment. Emails, memos and letters should have attitude and tone, organization and finally the format. No single correspondence exits alone, especially in the work place, it usually becomes a chain, making organization extremely important. The book had a great example of corresponding many emails, memos, and letters together and that organization keeps you from getting confused.
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20 comments:
I think it is somewhat funny that the book introduces all these rules and guidelines about how to properly write a correspondence because these days, writing e-mails and memos has become so lax. Online communication has really created its own language (one that should not be used in professional settings). This chapter points out that it’s important to bullet points and to keep ideas short and concise. In these types of communication, I think that’s exactly what needs to happen. People do not want to read a three page memo that could have been condensed into a paragraph, especially when they are at work and busy.
It is important for us to realize all the different types of correspondence that we are exposed to daily. Different types of correspondence include emails, letters, and memos. Since we use these different types of correspondence daily we should be able to know how to recognize, deliver, and use these correspondences to our advantage. Technologic communication is only going to get better and faster in the future. If we do not learn how to recognize and deliver these correspondences correctly we will be left behind. This chapter, as well as this article, was very interesting to me. It is hard to really grasp all the different types of communication that is available to us, and this blog did a really good job of explaining a few of them to us.
I think it's common sense that a memo should be short and to the point. I think alot of things in the business world or any industry really should be as short as possible. As what was said before, this is important because people do not have time to sit down and read an extremely long memo or other document. I also agree with the comment that the book gives guidelines for how to write a memo, when it seems that in the present people don't really take these into account. Email and instant messaging can make memo's less formal than they should be.
This chapter discussed the proper way to send an email or other technological correspondence. I think in the recent year’s computers and corresponding go hand in hand. Instead of making phone calls these days people would much rather use an email, although it is much more impersonal it is a lot easier and a lot less time consuming. I would much rather send an email than have to call someone it is easier and can be less awkward if you don't know the person very well.
I truly don’t know how I would communicate with others if email or instant messaging wasn’t around. These days, the internet makes it so much easier for people to communicate with others. Although, many of us have our own instant messaging and email talk, which is not a good thing, I think that many of us need to work on our grammar when communicating with others over email and instant messaging. I think this chapter is a great chapter to read if you are trying to increase your grammar when writing emails or when instant messaging, it really gives you a good look at what emails, memos and letters should look like.
This was a good chapter for everyone in college to read. I think that we have gotten used to creating emails in an informal manner. Once we get a job where email is a formal way of communication, we are going to need to be able to send emails in the appropriate way. I get emails from professors sometimes where the “I’s” are all lower case, and the letter is in one long sentence. Also, many people use abbreviations which they wouldn’t normally use in a formal letter. By avoiding these things in our letters we can seem more professional, and appear as a serious employee.
Everyone today has used some type of correspondence some time in their life. Whether it is writing a letter, sending an email, or making a memo all of us have some experience. Email is probably the most common use of correspondence. Writing emails are effective and takes little time and work. The book talks mostly about the formal use of emails and other types of correspondence. Most of the emails that I send are informal emails that are sent to friends or family. However, there are many times that I must write a formal email and it is important to know the proper format, organization, and guidelines for it to be as effective as possible.
There are many different types of correspondance that people come across everyday. The book talks about when delivering correspondance people send it by mail. This is not the case for most businesses, schools, and other professional settings. Most things that are sent through mail are personal letters. One thing to be careful about when sending e-mails is to watch the formality, depending on who it is being sent to. I agree with the book when it says that organization is essential. Similar to every other document, organization makes it easier for the reader to comprehend. Correspondance should be organized, address the audience and state the objectives.
When I write an e-mail it usually has no order or organization, I use short phrase or abbreviations to make it quicker. I can not imagine taking the time to make sure my e-mail were organized and clear with proper grammer. Although when I send an e-mail to a teacher I always make sure I proper grammer, spelling, and it makes sense. When its to another student I am not quit as concerned but I want to make sure I appear to be serious. When going out to the business world I understand the importants of all these different aspects. We should make sure that we are being professional in all our forms of communication. I also know the importance of what we put in e-mails. At my dads job there was people that were fired for sending sexual forwards, they didn't mean any harm by them but got fired for sexual harassment.
In everyday life we communicate through many different ways and many different formats. Recently in one of my classes I had to write a paper using the memo format. It was a different way of writing for me but this format can be very useful. At first I was skeptical of this thinking it was just another thing I had to follow, but after writing my paper it seems to be a useful tool. Email is another way to communicate but like mentioned in the summary we must remember it can be misdirected or stored and showed to others without our knowledge. Like any type of writing we need to understand that people we do not want to see it can see it
In the chapter eighteen summary, the group followed the important aspects of the chapter. When talking about correspondence guidelines it’s important that you are able to communicate with emails and memos. I agree that correspondence should have a subject line. You need to be specific with your action and respectful. When receiving a correspondence you want it to be clear and easy to read. Your email should be proof read and follow the format of a letter. I think people get too lazy when sending emails and tend to rush things. In conclusion, when sending a correspondence it’s imperative that you proof read your sentence structure.
The first comment made has a very interesting point. Burnett discusses the guidlines used for corresponding, but online communication has become so popular and informal. It has even developed its own language, making it that much more casual, that would never be used in a formal face-to-face situation. Although emailing and such has become relaxed, this could be a setback in a professional sense. Being that one is not corresponding in person, wording could be inferred in many different ways, and therefore it is crucial to word an email or letter in a direct, concise manner.
Correspondence does not allow you to leave a physical presence on your audience. It is not face to face or over the phone so tone of voice and mood are difficult to detect. So it is vital in your correspondence to get both of these across. You would not want to give off the impression of a serious subject when you are attemping to be comical, for lack of a better example. Make sure you are spelling words right and using the right words to words that are spelled the same but said different. Read and read - pronounced reed and red for example.
We have evolve so much in technology that we are able to send correspondences quicker then our parent's generation and the one before. Now these days we are able to get notes, memos, instant messages and etc sent to a person in just less then a second with the speed and capability of new technology. I never knew there were a little bit of guidlines in how to send correspondence the correct way until I read the chapter which gave good details directions by pointing out important things on how to keep the idea organize and short.
Correspondence is important to people when others have to understand the information. You don't want to send a whole bunch of information to a lot of people and have them not be able to understand what you are trying to tell them. Making sure that all of the information is up to date and has proper grammar is also an important part. Some people will not meet you and base yourself and your personality on your correspondence alone, so make sure that you use good language, have a good attitude, and your tone is used in an appropriate manner.
In the last few years instant messaging has increased in popularity tenfold. This might merely be a fad or it could just be that the technology wasn’t advanced enough to support such conveniences but the fact of the matter is that instant messaging is enormously popular, especially among the younger generation. In this chapter the book talks about memos emails and letters used to correspond to coworkers with. This is important because of the lack of punctuation, spelling errors, and slang that has developed. While I feel that the shorter a document is and the faster the person receiving it gets through it the faster more work can be accomplished. However, if it takes them longer because they don’t know what it says than the whole advantage has been defeated and the extra time should have been taken to produce a legible document.
This chapter is about preparing correspondence. Correspondence may include emails, memos and letters. There isn’t any particular way of writing correspondence but writing it in a correct way does matter. It should be particularly directed to the audience. The heading should be explanatory and appropriate. The content should be brief and on topic. Way of addressing should be appropriate with appropriate attitude and tone. There are many examples given in the chapter for the readers to more understand the idea of preparing a good correspondence. And overall the organization of all the information and the format of the correspondence should be taken care of. Following these procedure will certainly help in creating a very good correspondence.
In Chapter 18 Preparing Correspondence we read about how to understand that correspondence, an important kind of technical communication, does not exists in a vacuum, nor does it have rigid format descriptions. Composing correspondence using appropriate planning strategies, selecting appropriate planning strategies, selecting, appropriate content, and developing an appropriate organization so the document is legible, readable, and usable. How to present good news in direct order. Present bad news in ascending order. Positively influence readers’ perceptions of your professional competence by using direct language, adopting a you-attitude rather than an I or we-attitude, focusing on readers rather than yourself, and avoiding exclusionary language.
A memo should be short and sweet. if its too long and there is too much bulk to it. it can become confusing to the reader and also can make to much stress. When I worked at fleet farm they always sent memos out to each individual department about changing an end cap. The memo would be 10 pages long... and everyone would freak out thinking it would be so much work to get done, when really it only took 40 mins to do. But almost an hour to read and interrupt. yup
I think this summary is very well written. It covers the chapter well and highlights all of the main points. I have used e-mail many times when inquiring about a job. I think it is a good first step because I can send my resume electronically and it can be forwarded to whoever in the company may need to see it. However, it is usually followed up by a more direct communication like a phone call or meeting. I think that is a good way for the company to see who you are and get a first look at you.
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