Bethel University Routine Business Messages Paper

This week, we learned about email, social media, and routine business messages. For your Unit 3 Complete assignment, write a cohesive, narrative essay (minimum 1000 words) in which you address and discuss the questions and statements listed below. Begin your essay with an introduction that gets your reader’s attention, previews your main points, and states your thesis. End your essay with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes your main points and leaves your reader with a memorable thought or idea. Use at least three scholarly sources. Cite your sources in APA format.

Providing Directions

Another common type of routine message provides directions for others. Messages that provide directions share many similarities with those that set expectations. The primary distinction is that directions typically include specific—often step-by-step—guidelines for accomplishing particular tasks.

Since describing step-by-step procedures is so specific, insufficient detail can frustrate your readers. For routine matters, you are generally safe reviewing your own work and making sure it is complete. For more technical and complicated procedures, make sure you have several people test the procedures to find where you can better clarify the steps involved.

In messages with procedures and directions, make the steps stand out clearly by enumerating each one. This helps your reader keep track of progress completing the tasks. Steps that are written in narrative form within a paragraph are typically difficult to follow.

Notice the differences between the less effective and more effective messages in Figures 9.6 and 9.7, where Bryan gives directions to John on how to make company Page 276travel arrangements. The less effective example in Figure 9.6 has an unhelpful and careless tone, written almost entirely in passive voice. The message is abrupt and insufficiently detailed. Many readers will decode a meta message of “I don’t have time for you.” In the more effective example in Figure 9.7, Bryan provides clear directions by pasting the human resources policies into the message and inserting his own comments as additional guidelines and tips. He also tells John where to go for more information. In reality, Bryan could have simply emailed “check the HR intranet portal.” Yet, this more effective message, written in just three to four minutes, is a strong sign of Bryan’s willingness to help John. Many readers will decode a meta message of “I want to help you out as much as possible.”

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FIGURE 9.6

Less Effective Directions

FIGURE 9.7

More Effective Directions

Business Communication

Developing Leaders for a Networked World

Fourth Edition

Peter W. Cardon

University of Southern California

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2021 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous edition © 2018, 2016, and 2014. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cardon, Peter W., author.

Title: Business communication : developing leaders for a networked world /

Peter W. Cardon.

Description: Fourth edition. | New York, NY : McGraw-Hill Education, 2021.

| Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019040775 | ISBN 9781260088342 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Business communication. | Business enterprises—Computer

networks. | Business communication—Computer network resources.

Classification: LCC HF5718 .C267 2021 | DDC 658.4/5–dc23