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Part II: Chapter-by-Chapter Lecture Notes &
Exercises
Chapter 1: Communicating in the Workplace
Teaching Suggestions
Much of the informaon you will cover in the rst meeng is roune—introducon of yourself, oce
hours, course requirements, operang policies, and other business. In addion, you will probably want
to introduce the subject ma!er of the course. Chapter 1 contains such an introducon, so you may want
to start by summarizing its contents and adding illustraons from your knowledge and experience. Your
overall goals should be to convince the students that business communicaon is important in business
and to their personal advancement in business; to alert them to current challenges facing business
communicators; to convey basic facts about the business-communicaon environment; and to bring out
that business communicaon, as a problem-solving acvity, requires analysis, creavity, and judgment
(there are no magic formulas).
If you want to add some interest to this rst meeng, try assigning a message to be wri!en in class (but
not for a grade). Make the problem a dicult one—a refusal or other bad-news situaon requiring
tac,ul handling. Without instrucons on such problems, most of the students will write messages that
are .awed. Save these messages unl you cover this problem in the course and then give the messages
back. When the students see their early wring specimens and compare them with their current work,
they’ll see the progress they have made. Also, the exercise is good for a few laughs, especially if you have
some students read their original messages aloud to the class.
Another idea is to present a sample message (perhaps one from a real business) and, going over each
part in detail, discuss the many decisions that went into the wring of the message. For example, the
writer had to decide rst even whether or not to write; then he/she needed to decide what genre (or
form) of message this would be, how formal to make it, how to address the reader, what to say, how to
organize the contents, where to put the paragraph breaks, which wording would be best in each
place . . . and so on. This exercise reinforces the key point that good business communicaon is good
decision-making—as well as the point that preparing any message of importance will require me, care,
and revision.
Sll another possibility is the “message makeover” exercise. Present a poorly wri!en message from a
real organizaon, with idenfying details removed. A negave message is o8en the most relatable and
entertaining to students. (A popular choice is a memo announcing layo9s.) This also gives you the
opportunity to discuss the importance of choosing the correct medium for the message. Ask students
what problems they nd with the tone, wring style, and informaon included and how they would
improve these. Then present a well-wri!en revision, explaining that this is the kind of wring they’ll
learn how to do in this course. This exercise helps students become aware of how much they already
know about idenfying good versus bad wring, and also how much they stand to learn from the course.
