Quintanilla, Business and Professional Communication: KEYS for Workplace Excellence 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
3. Professional excellence means being recognized for your skills as a communicator and serving
as a role model to others.
4. Decoding messages involves the receiver of a message responding to the sender.
5. The fear of public speaking is known as trait communication apprehension.
6. Perceiving one’s communication as effective, while those around them perceive it as
ineffective is known as communication bravado.
7. Organizational attitudes are specific principles or guidelines such as safety, teamwork,
integrity, or ownership that are typically outlined in support of any given organizational mission
or goal.
8. Ethics is the general term for the discussion, determination, and deliberation processes that
attempt to decide what is right or wrong, what others should or should not do, and what is
considered appropriate in our individual, communal, and professional lives.
9. Ethical dilemmas are situations that tend to present clear choices between right and wrong
or good and evil.
10. Feedback points to the need for us, as communicators, to look to for cues from the other
person with whom we are communicating.
11. Messages and feedback are essentially the same thing in the communication model.
12. To say that you cannot not communicate is to say that everything is communication.
13. Values and ethics are the same.
14. If Juanita avoids social situations and never raises her hand in class to answer questions
posed by the professor, Juanita is exhibiting the “shy trait.”
15. Audience-based communication apprehension explains a person’s fear of speaking to
certain people or groups.
16. If Bennie feels anxiety when asked to speak to certain groups, he is feeling audience-based
communication apprehension.
17. Preparing and organizing something to be in the spotlight can promote the feeling of
formality that makes you nervous or apprehensive.
18. Feeling as though you are in the spotlight and all eyes are on you can generally not be
considered to be a cause of anxiety.
19. Professional excellence equates to communicating a message effectively.
20. When speaking and you feel as though a listener or the audience is bored and uninterested
in your message or presentation, you may begin to feel apprehension.
21. Johann is member of the school Democratic club and has been asked to address a group of
students who are registering to vote as Republicans. This dissimilarity of philosophies and
commonalities can be the cause that is making Johann anxious.
22. Annabelle is getting ready to graduate from college but she had a bad experience when she
was in high school when speaking at an all-school assembly. Now, whenever Annabelle is asked
to speak to a group, conspicuousness causes her to experience anxiety.
23. The first step in the KEYS process is “Know Your Audience.”
24. Raj knows that one of the important steps in the KEYS process is the last step. This step is to
step back and reflect.
25. The fact that technology allows us to connect with people across the globe means that we
are well prepared to communicate effectively through these channels with others living and
working in different cultural contexts.
26. Using email to communicate would be considered a communication channel.
27. The dynamic aspect of role-taking and feedback keeps a transaction flowing.
28. Developing professional excellence means beginning to assess your communication context
(location, time, and occasion where communication occurs) and use that information when
developing your message.
29. If the type of communication situation, such as giving a speech or running a meeting, is not
something you do every day, the subordinate status can create apprehension until you become
familiar with this task or situation.
30. Many people feel comfortable taking a more aggressive or assertive tone when using email
than when engaging in face-to-face communication.
31. Ethical considerations are the variety of factors important for us to consider in any scenario
in which we’re making a decision, conducting an evaluation, or making a selection.
32. Buster realizes that his final grade will almost certainly be a “D” if things don’t change
dramatically. He approaches Professor Rogers and requests an opportunity to do some sort of
extra credit right away before the semester ends and final grades have to be posted. Professor
Rogers declines Buster’s request, stating that, if he allowed Buster to do an extra credit project,
it would only be fair to make that same offer and allowance to every student in the class, and it
is too late in the semester to accomplish that. Professor Rogers’s decision is based on ethical
considerations.
33. Randall works for a restaurant chain that expects its employees to follow certain guidelines
that include safety, teamwork, and integrity. These expectations are known as ethical
dilemmas.
Short Answer
1. Values are often articulated in ______ or ______ statements.
2. ______ is the process of understanding our experiences and the experiences of others
through the use of verbal and nonverbal messages.
3. Although when Brian is initiating the exchange of information (as the sender), he can’t
control how the listener (as the ______) interprets the message, the goal is for the listener to
understand the meaning of the message as the sender intended it.
4. The critical functions of human communication (sending and receiving messages, offering
feedback, identifying the “role” of different communicators) must also be applied to the
context of ______ communication.
5. The dynamic aspect of role-taking coupled with ______ keeps a transaction flowing.
6. The way people respond initially to new business transactions depends greatly on their
previous communication ______ in similar situations.
7. Communication is a ______ process that consists of a number of elements, all of which are in
play every time you communicate.
8. When senders encode their messages with verbal and nonverbal cues, they are trying to help
others ______ what they mean.
9. Noise is part of the communication ______.
10. Always and ______, communication is contextual.
11. Developing professional excellence includes learning to consider things such as context and
______ when making decisions about your communication interactions.
12. When Marjorie and Maggie are communicating as sender and receiver, it is expected that a
______ is communicated.
Essay
1. Imagine you are in a management position and need to roll out what you anticipate will be
an unpopular change in the pay structure at your organization. This change will mean that
several lower-level employees will receive pay cuts and many of your current positions will be
reorganized. What kinds of things should you consider as you decide how to convey this
message to your team? Frame your discussion around the KEYS process. Include concepts
discussed in the communication model with particular attention paid to noise, feedback, and
communication channel. You should also incorporate the textbook’s discussion of ethical
communication.
2. Describe the communication process using key terms and concepts from the chapter.
3. Explain the differences between the different types of communication apprehension and
how they can work in tandem to create noise in the communication model.
4. Think about how you use social media in professional contexts. How can it be helpful in
enhancing your professional excellence? How can it be harmful to your professional excellence?
Quintanilla, Business and Professional Communication: KEYS for Workplace Excellence 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
5. Define and describe three types of communication apprehension.
6. Discuss the principle that “you cannot not communicate.”
7. Discuss the importance of the second aspect of the KEYS process.
8. When applying the KEYS process, what is the importance of stepping back and reflecting?
9. Imagine that your coworker, who is also a personal friend, tells you that you seem to suffer
from communication bravado, explaining what that means, how might you be able to reduce
that issue to become a more effective communicator?
10. Discuss why ethics is central to professional excellence in communication.
11. Brandi is about to present her first in-class speech of the semester and is feeling anxiety
about speaking to her many classmates. Explain what type of communication apprehension
Brandi is experiencing.
Quintanilla, Business and Professional Communication: KEYS for Workplace Excellence 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
12. Patrick has an important presentation to give at the board of directors meeting this
morning. Unfortunately, Patrick was awake most of the night with stomach cramps and a
severe headache and he does not feel very well as he approaches his presentation. When he
arrives at the meeting, he has difficulty focusing on the message he came to deliver. What is
the issue that Patrick is experiencing?