Week 6 assignment Communications & Media Coursework

Read the attached file then do the exercise. You also need the text book as same as last time. LOG IN ASK SUPPORT When you log in i will give you the pass.

Week 6 Notes and exercise for Chapter 4:

One of the reasons we write is to consolidate and clarify our thoughts. Your textbook quotes the late Lee Iacocca, a giant and visionary in the auto industry, as saying, “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.” That’s not some mystical concept, but a sensible one: Putting ideas into words on paper forces us to think them through.

(That’s one of the benefits of the message mapping process as well, I think, because it makes us translate thoughts and ideas into something that can be communicated and explained.)

Your book makes some good suggestions for doing this:

• Choose natural, conversational words.



• Build active, verb-based sentences.



• Assemble short, logical paragraphs.



• Use good transitions.



• Achieve a fluid cadence.

A friend of mine who is very successful in business sums up the communication process in a slightly different way, but I like it:

• Be brief.



• Be brilliant.



• Be gone.

What he is saying, of course, is part of what your textbook points out – in today’s world, we have less patience with fluff. We want to build clear, concise sentences that carry meaning. We want readers to understand what we are saying, to know or believe that what we are saying is important and useful, and to be able to act on our message.

A lot of academic writing runs counter to these ideas. You have all, I expect, written academic papers that contained a great deal of information designed to show the teacher or professor that you have done considerable research, taken good notes, reported the information accurately, and so forth. And that is important, and I don’t want this to be read as insulting that process.

But business writing is different.

It’s different in that we are writing for a purpose, and that purpose is not just to get a good grade. It’s to communicate important information to an audience that can range from accepting to skeptical to downright hostile, and to get all of those readers to act on your message.

How am I doing so far on following the rules from your textbook, listed above? Am I using natural, conversational words that you recognize and understand? Am I building active, verb-based sentences and assembling short, logical paragraphs? Am I using good transitions? Have I achieved a fluid cadence?

I hope so.

So, in the hopes of also following the advice of my friend in business, I’ll try to “be gone” shortly.

Your assignment for this week is to do the following exercises – what your textbook calls “practice opportunities” at the end of Chapter 4. Please do exercises I-A, correct choppy cadence; I-B, fix monotonous cadence; and VI, build a list of short-word substitutes.

Deadline for this assignment is the end of the day on Friday.