Please be sure to add that. Complex sentences consist of at least one dependent clause followed by at least one independent clause: While Amanita looked for the ball, Fido chased a grasshopper. Referring to three physicians as Dr. Jameel Smith, Dr. Samuel Evans, and Kathy will probably not make Dr. Kathleen O’Rourke very happy. You write a thank-you note to your aunt for the socks she sent much differently than you write a thank-you note after a job interview with the vice president of the division. The organization, word choice, and tone of your message allows the communication to be received and understood while maintaining a positive business relationship. For the tire changer (receiver) a personal assistant is easier, but more expensive. Lists can be used in several ways. That is why the language and the words we use are important. Starting a sentence with a dependent clause can sometimes bury the important news at the back end of the sentence. Use the following principles to guide your vocabulary decisions. It creates white space in the message. To build on what Maria Rosales, best-selling author and History professor as Duke University wrote in her article “The Importance of Word Choice,” words can poke fun. Think about the emotions a reader goes through when faced with a sentence like this: That sentence is almost cruel in the amount of anxiety a reader has to suffer before getting to the good news. The best solution is often to rephrase the sentence to have a plural subject instead of a singular subject. While they is typically treated as a plural pronoun, when an individual has expressed a desire to be identified with gender-neutral pronouns (they/their/theirs), it is grammatically correct to use they as a singular pronoun (per the Chicago Manual of Style, one of the predominant authorities on grammar and style). That cart did not work any more. Grammar is important because it provides information that helps the reader’s comprehension. First, it … However, what is considered appropriate emphasis can differ drastically in this age of texting and social media. For someone nearing retirement, she caught on to that new software quickly. I know exactly what do do with the claim now. ACTIVE VOICE: You cannot have a raise at this time. Isn’t it obvious that “I am writing”? Examples of important word choice in agriculture. Instead of focusing on “sounding smart,” concentrate on expressing accurate content with precise, unambiguous words so that the message is transmitted clearly. Your product was in the Texas depot.” While both versions of the email let the customer know the product’s delivery information, the second version places emphasis on the customer and makes the customer most important. Learn how the words you use paints the picture the person you're communicating with sees. Doublespeak is a more deliberate form of euphemism that disguises the meaning of words so that the idea the words represent seems less unpleasant. Not only is it possible to read this passage without dozing off, it also gives more information by showing the relationship among the bits of information given. Order number 1234, received August 1, ships on August 5. That you are an insider and not an outsider. He or she will call between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning.” Only one person will be making the call, so we can’t make this sentence plural. Therefore, the sentence should start with the important part. Yet, most business communication is that “thing”—the company—rather than a human communicating. She was dead after all that overtime last weekend. In business communication, the key is to choose language that is direct and easy for your audience to understand. Using all capital letters is construed as yelling at someone. . Think of the advice a home seller receives before an open house: have bread baking or apple cider simmering to create an aroma that makes the house feel more like a home. Be precise while understandable. Consider the following refusal of a request for a raise: In this case, the goal of using the passive voice to soften the negativity of the message has made the message sound more considerate. Instead you can use “he or she” (“his or her,” etc) as the pronoun for a generic noun: Using “he or she” is an okay solution, but it can get clunky in large doses: “Every employee should check with his or her supervisor that his or her report was properly filed.” Additionally, many individuals neither identify as male nor female and use they as a singular pronoun to refer to themselves. PJ-Friendly Writing Groups for Undergrads, About the Writing and Communication Centre. Business writers work to be clear and direct in meaning, and drawing attention to details about race, age, country of origin, disability, and gender in the workplace might cause conscious or unconscious bias. [Even though the part of the sentence before the comma has a subject, “Amanita,” and a verb “looked,” the addition of “while” means it can’t stand on it’s own as a sentence. Essentially, any time you have a list—whether it’s within a single sentence or has a larger scope—you should focus on parallelism. Being specific in customer service word choices does more things than one. Parallelism can also apply to the way you talk about similar elements in general. Some companies have decided to include instructional DVDs that demonstrate the controls. Asynchronous Transfer Mode will work well in this situation. Maintaining parallelism can also keep you from unintentional bias. Use of Italic font provides emphasis without the startling impact of all capital letters. She finally has enough information to email the customer and provide an update on the situation. After you find the receipt, circle the incorrect payment and add the voided check to the envelope. While humans write the communications, the situation remains one company communicating to another or to a customer. Think of it this way: separately, Brussels sprouts, marshmallows, and sardines are delicious; together, they’d be kind of horrifying. When you go to the store, can you remember to get the items I need for my recipe? Context affects how people interpret the message. Think about the difference between these two versions of a list in an internal report: Which one is easier to follow? The Importance Of Tone How we often communicate the opposite of what we intend ... Ironically, I'd been wondering why my wife and I seemed not to be enjoying one another's company as … Reading and writing are usually not solitary activities. As a general rule in a business setting, do not mention a person’s race or ethnicity unless it is directly relevant to the situation. The word cliché is French for a stereotype block, used in printing to reproduce a single page many times. We have to clear these lines of customers quickly. Create a Sensory Experience The best writing creates a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Recently employees have erroneously entered. 2. Maybe it’s parenting or one that revolves around your sport or hobby. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a cliché as “a trite phrase or expression; a hackneyed theme, characterization, or situation; something (such as a menu item) that has become overly familiar or commonplace.”[1]. The correct amount of emphasis in business communications can help readers easily access the intended message. PASSIVE VOICE: A raise can not be given at this time. This could be a good way to focus on ways to improve company strategy, rather than focusing on a single person’s performance (and avoid calling out a single employee in a potentially public setting). In this module, this concept is called you-view. This model focuses on the choices a writer or sender of a message can make to best convey their message to the receiver. A person, in general, chooses words to which he feels comfortable, confident, and simple enough for a general audience to understand. Notice how she talks about herself first with the use of personal pronoun “I”? These are all important questions to consider as you begin to select each and every word that makes it into your speech. It is important that you understand the words that you choose. (This may look tricky, but all of the elements in the list are nouns, so the sentence is parallel. In some cases word choice is necessary for maintaining rhyme. Selecting a word because it sounds “smarter” or “more academic” can result in using words incorrectly, which detracts from the credibility of your argument. You might be thinking you will get a call back tomorrow. Doing this well enhances the writer’s reputation. Visit our COVID-19 information website to learn how Warriors protect Warriors. Too much salt is off-putting and may even be sickening. Use of bold font provides emphasis without the startling impact of all capital letters. For more useful information on how sentences work, and to get some practice in before you start your own writing, check out this reading on Sentence Structure. The Visual Thesaurus is an online dictionary and thesaurus that displays the word you are looking up at the … The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. To achieve parallelism, identify where the sentences start to be different, in this case, after “to.” Therefore, what comes after “to” is what your list should be made of in order to be parallel. Sometimes when I'm grading a student's paper and I find a misused word, I circle it and write "Word Choice." There are five questions to answer. Question 1 10 out of 0 points Why is it more important to monitor your word choice in a professional environment than in personal communication exchanges? It’s precision that gives writing power.” This observation applies to all kinds of writing. Grammatically, there are three kinds of sentences. can make your writing sound boring. In business writing, your purpose should not be to hide meaning but to communicate clearly. When choosing between terms to refer to a group, it is best to ask a member of that group what they prefer. One way people could learn about changing a tire is from a description in the owner’s manual sent by the auto manufacturer. One of the biggest benefits of using a varied word choice is that it All three verbs are gerunds, whereas in the first sentence, two are gerunds and one is an infinitive. It is likely Lynnette is thinking the customer will be impressed with her efforts and feel like a valued customer. Move to the solution rather than increasing the focus on what went wrong. In dialogue or thoughts, the right word can reveal what other characters think and feel. Penis. As you write and edit, ask yourself whether you are using several words when there’s one perfectly good one that would suffice. In both of these instances, you were (likely) guided away from the passive voice. I had to call Texas, send a copy to Dallas, and then…..” Stop! The department is being right-sized. It’s not especially important for you to be able to identify them in order to be a good business writer. In a recent commentary in Lancet Psychiatry, Veryan Richards, member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Patient and Carer Committee, discusses the importance of language in mental health care.Richards argues that language has a powerful impact and therefore more efforts should be made to use language that is destigmatizing and accurately descriptive. Imagine an entire report full of this: Even though you are reading excellent news, you’re about to keel over from the monotony, aren’t you? It is not clear what step must be taken next. How we communicate what we try to convey, is critical in having the message understood by th… If all choices are related to considering the receiver’s needs over those of the sender, the message is more likely to achieve its purpose quickly. Research has shown that kids need to understand 98% of the words they read to understand what they are reading. Narrowness. Your help is appreciated. The passive is created using the verb to be (e.g., the song is sung; it was struck from behind). And How You Say Them. Consider the paragraph and revision below. Distorted, inaccurate enunciation acts as a barrier to communication while mispronunciations cause words to be confused and can lead to costly errors in comprehension. To process your refund, the store needs several pieces of documentation. [This includes a prepositional phrase, “on her perch,” and a compound verb “sat” and “whistled,” but it’s still a simple sentence.]. The dictionary defines jargon as “the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group.”[2] Since these terms are used within an activity, group, or profession, they’re typically not well understood outside that context. You may have noticed something unique about the previous passive voice example: the passive voice can be used to “hide” who performed the action. Note things you would like to change or develop, such as your tone of voice, speed of talking, expression, word choice or body language. The second sentence uses parallelism. As a general rule, avoid using labeled nouns when talking about people with disabilities. A simple rule for bias-free writing is to consider whether personal details need to be included to get the point across. She was exhausted after all that overtime last week. Put the receiver first. At the heart of business is the idea that “time is money.” This may lead you to believe that shorter messages are always better; however, concise writing is not just fast or short; it is writing that balances the clarity of the message with efficiency. However, the email does not take the you-view. When filing the report, employees should make sure they included yesterday’s data. Solid writing skills do that for the employee. Apologizing can bring blame upon a company. Lists add white space to a document, which helps the reader. Or, think about a clothes washing machine. If you are going to use slang, however, make sure that you’re using it correctly. There is a meeting for the entire staff next Friday. If you are passionate about writing, you understand the importance of word choice to convey the right meaning or evoke emotion. Each of us has a variety of ways of speaking and writing depending on circumstances. To understand this concept, think about learning to change a tire. Concise business writing uses clean, straightforward sentence structure to improve understanding and retention. She caught on to that new software quickly. Word choice is an important way to signal to a community that you belong. The above sentence is imprecise. Why does the topic of bias-free writing follow a page about hidden meaning? If you are trying to avoid throwing someone under the bus, one strategy is to de-emphasize the actor or subject in the sentence. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Indigenous Initiatives Office. Recently, employees have erroneously entered wired rather than rewired on service orders. But there are occasions when being too direct can make you sound insensitive. Selected Answer: When in a professional environment you are dealing with individuals that have a higher education than yourself or different cultures. Even more important are the words you choose to leave out: consider too, what you aren't saying. Remember, your goal is not to make your sentences short, your goal is to convey your ideas clearly and to avoid ambiguity. Many students express the desire to “sound intelligent.” This is often mistaken to mean that we should use our thesaurus as much as possible and replace word choices with more complex, higher-level words at all times. Here are a few more examples of parallelism in which the elements are all different lengths and types: Jackson and Krista are cooking dinner, David and Rogelio are setting the table, and Ollie and Ron are picking up dessert. For more information on how and why to use the passive voice check out Using the Passive Voice in Lumen’s Guide to Writing. You should use the same mode of address for every person you mention. If all choices are related to considering the receiver’s needs over those of the sender, the message is more likely to achieve its purpose quickly. The business’s reputation also grows—not in a blatant way but in a behind-the-scenes way. (Parallel elements are prepositional phrases. John is one of our most active employees. The next hurdle is to figure out a way to eliminate any inherent sexism without disrupting the flow of the piece. Why is the passive voice so hated? 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