Hi Everyone,

You are not required to read any specific material in chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Business Communication Essentials.  We do not have a specific discussion task related to any specific parts of those chapter.

However, these three chapters may prove beneficial to you as you encounter the various writing assignments in our class.  I have provided the following short video summaries of each chapter to help you see what may be most beneficial for each of these three chapters.

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Hi Everyone,

The following scenario describes a communication situation in a workplace.  The situation does not involve writing.  Rather, it involves verbal communication.

Feeling rushed by a looming deadline for a report her manager wanted right away, Jory asked Saul to help by getting her some marketing statistics. “I need the figures from the last three years,” she said. “Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all,” Saul replied.

But by mid-day, Saul had still not gotten the statistics to Jory—and her report was due first thing in the morning. Saul was out, so she left him a voicemail: “This is Jory,” she said. “I was wondering, how soon do you think you can get me those stats for the marketing report?”

Two hours later, Jory received an e-mail from Saul: “I’ll have those stats to you the day after tomorrow.”

Jory called Saul again, relieved to find that he was in his office. “Friday’s too late,” she said. “The report’s due tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you say you needed them so soon?” Saul said. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave in twenty minutes, and I’m at an off-site meeting all day tomorrow.”

Jory thought she had told Saul what she wanted, and Saul thought he had heard her. But no real communication took place in this situation, and now Jory is left without the statistics she needs to complete her report.

Please answer the following questions:

1. What happened in this situation? What did the Sender perceive, and what did the Receiver perceive?

2. Comment on Jory’s priorities and Saul’s priorities.  How did they differ, and how did those differences inform this situation?

3. Have you experienced a similar situation in your workplace or community interactions?  If so, briefly describe the situation (without divulging people’s names, the names of organizations, etc.) A short paragraph will suffice in answering this question.

4.  Assume you are Jory.  Please write a memo asking Saul for the information.  Don’t worry about the formatting of the memo for this discussion.  Simply type the content of your memo to Saul.

Please feel free to interact with others on their answers to any one of these questions.

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The following task is designed to expand your familiarity with UMUC’s Information and Library Service’s OneSearch function.  Completing this exercise will also help you as you pursue the research-based report in this class.

I

f you would like to, please review the same video tutorial that you watched for our earlier exercise.  The tutorial is designed to demonstrate some searching strategies when finding articles in the databases that UMUC subscribes to.

Video tutorial #1

http://polaris.umuc.edu/de/csi/2012_library_tutorials/tutorial_01/tutorial_01.html

After you have reviewed the tutorial, please complete the following tasks. 

1. For the previous exercise, you found four articles on the millennial generation.  You may use one of the four articles you found, or you may find a new one.  But find an article that provides additional key words or other search terms that you can use to enhance your search.  This technique was outlined in the first video.

What additional words did you find that enhanced your search?   Please write them here.

2. Use the Boolean operator “OR,” as the video demonstrates, and type in these terms. 

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

Please write the number of hits your got as a result of expanding your search using the Boolean operator “OR.”

Please watch the following video tutorial:

Video tutorial #2

http://polaris.umuc.edu/de/csi/2012_library_tutorials/tutorial_02/tutorial_02.html

3.  Take one of the articles you found.  Then, following the instructions provided on the second video, focus your search by using a subject term. 

-What was the name of the article? 

-What subject term did you use?

-How many hits do you find after limiting the search with the subject term?

4.  Next, conduct a new search to find an article on a topic of your choice.  You might choose something related to your major, your work, or your interests. 

When you have found an article, follow the instructions provided on the video and  focus your search by using a subject term.  Then answer the following questions:

-What was the name of the article? 

-What subject term did you use?

-How many hits do you find after limiting the search with the subject term?

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The following scenario describes another communication situation in a workplace. 

Marla has been planning the company’s first annual conference. She has been consumed by this responsibility for weeks—working nonstop, even on weekends.  Several days earlier, her colleague, Marcus, thinking that she might need some help, asked, “How’s the conference planning going?”

“It’s fine, everything’s under control,” Marla muttered.

The Friday before the conference is scheduled to begin, Marcus notices that Marla seems even more frantic. Wanting to be helpful, he asks again how things are going. “They couldn’t be worse,” Marla snaps. “Two speakers dropped out yesterday, and the room they had promised us for breakout sessions won’t be available after all. Now I hear there might be an airline strike.”

“I’m sorry,” Marcus said. “How can I help?”

Marla stared at him. “Now you offer help? Where have you been? I could have used help weeks ago!”

Marcus was stunned. “But I thought. . .You never asked,” he said.

“A blind man could see how busy I was,” Marla exclaimed.

Taken from Chan, J. (2009). Chapter 3: Getting Your Message Across. In, Communication skills for managers, 5th Edition (pp. 27-50). American Management Association International

Please answer the following questions:

1. What happened in this situation? What did the Sender perceive, and what did the Receiver perceive?

2. Comment on some assumptions Marla might have been making.  What were they, and how might those assumptions have informed this situation?

3. Have you experienced similar situations in your workplace or community interactions?  If so, briefly describe the situation (without divulging people’s names, the names of organizations, etc.) A short paragraph will suffice in answering this question.

4. Please watch the following video on low-context cultures and high-context languages and cultures.  The video is 4:44 long.  Then answer the question below the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3iYmZGome4#action=share

If you had to guess, would you say that Marla comes from a high-context culture?  Or would you say that she comes from a low-context culture?  Why? Write a sentence or two in answering this question.