Chapter 12 "Test Your Knowledge"

1. What skills do oral presentations give you the opportunity to practice and demonstrate?
Oral presentations, delivered in person or online, offer important opportunities to put all your communication skills on display, including research, planning, writing, visual design, and interpersonal and nonverbal communication.

Presentations also let you demonstrate your ability to think on your feet, grasp complex business issues, and handle challenging situations-all attributes that executives look for when searching for talented employees to promote.

2. What three goals should you accomplish during the introduction of an oral presentation?
An effective introduction arouses interest in your topic, establishes your credibility, and prepares the audience for the body of your presentation.

3. What techniques can you use to get an audience's attention during your introduction?
Six ways to get the audience's attention during your introduction: unite the audience around a common goal, tell a story, pass around a simple, ask a question, state a starting statistic, and use humor.

4. What three tasks should you accomplish in the close of your presentation?
In the close of your presentation make sure to restate the main points, describe next steps, and end on a strong note.

5. What steps can you take to ensure success with online presentations?
To ensure success with online presentations: consider sending preview study materials ahead of time, keep your presentation as simple as possible, ask for feedback frequently, consider the viewing experience from the audience members' point of view, make sure your audience can receive the sort of content you intend to use, and allow plenty of time for everyone to get connected and familiar with the screen they're viewing.

Test Your Knowledge pg. 250

1. How are reports for monitoring and controlling used?
Reports to monitor and control operations provide feedback and other information for decision making (plans, operation reports, personal activity reports)

2. How does primary research differ from secondary research?
Primary research is new research done specifically for the current project. Secondary research is research done previously for another purpose.

3. What makes a survey reliable and valid?
Reliable if it would produce identical results if repeated and valid (measures what its supposed to measure).

4. How does a conclusion differ from a recommendation?
A conclusion is a logical interpretation of facts and other information. A conclusion interprets information, whereas a recommendation suggests what to do about the information.

5. How do proposal writers use an RFP?
Request for proposals (RFP) include instructions that specify exactly the type of work to be performed or products to be delivered, along with budgets, deadlines, and other requirements.

9: Writing Persuasive Messages pg. 216

Test your Knowledge
1. What are some questions to ask when gauging the audience's needs during the planning of a persuasive message?
Who is my audience? What are my audience members needs? What do I want them to do? How might they resist? Are there alternative positions I need to examine? What does the decision maker consider to be the most important issue? How might the organization's culture influence my strategy?

2. What role do demographics and psychographics play in audience analysis during the planning of a persuasive message?
Demographics include characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, income, and education. Psychographics include characteristics such as personality, attitudes, and lifestyle.

3. How do emotional appeals differ from logical appeals?
Emotional appeals attempt to connect with the reader's feelings or sympathies. Logical appeals are based on the reader's notions of reason; these appeals can use analogy, induction, or deduction.

4. What three types of reasoning can you use in logical appeals?
Analogy: reason from specific evidence to specific evidence
Induction: work from specific evidence to a general conclusion
Deduction: work from a generalization to a specific conclusion

5. What is the AIDA model, and what are its limitations?
AIDA model, which organizes your presentation into 4 phrases: Attention-->Interest-->Desire-->Action
Limitations: AIDA is a unidirectional method that essentially talks at audiences, not with them. AIDA is built around a single event, such as asking an audience for a decision, rather than on building a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship.

Textbook pg. 188

Test your Knowledge
1. What are the 5 main goals in delivering bad news?
To convey the bad news, to gain acceptance for it, to maintain as much goodwill as possible with your audience, to main a good image for your organization, if appropriate to reduce or eliminate the need for future correspondence on the matter

2. What questions should you ask yourself when choosing between the direct and indirect approaches?
(1) Will the news come as a shock? (2) Does the reader prefer short messages that get right to the point? (3) How important is the news to the reader? (4) Do you need to maintain a close working relationship with the reader? (5) Do you need to get the readers attention? (6) What is your organization's preferred style?

3. What is the sequence of elements in a negative message organized using the indirect approach?
Buffer-->Reasons-->Bad news-->Positive close

4. What is a buffer, and why do some critics consider it unethical?
Buffer: a neutral, noncontroversial statement that is closely related to the point of the message. Critics may consider a buffer unethical because it was insincere or deceptive

5. When is using the indirect approach to announce a negative decision, what is the purpose of presenting your reasons before explaining the decision itself? Guides your reader's responses by starting with the most positive points first and moving forward to increasingly negative ones. Convince your audience that your decision is justified, fair, and logical.

Apply your Knowledge
1. Why is it important to end negative messages on a positive note? Explain.
It will be the last thing the audience has to remember so why not make it positive. It gives you the opportunity to emphasize your respect for your audience, even though you have just delivered unpleasant news.

2. What challenges do social media present to today's companies when it comes to negative information?
Social media face the challenges of what things to and what things to not display in terms of you and the company. The wrong things could lose them business and the right things could gain more.

3. If the purpose of your letter is to convey bad news, should you take the time to suggest alternatives to your reader? Why or why not?
Yes, it may make the person feel less disappointed and still view the company positively. But if the relationship isn't it vital to the company you probably shouldn't spend time researching alternatives for that other person.

4. Why should a company always try to respond to all job applicants?
Failing to do so builds ill will and can harm your company's reputation.

5. Ethical Choices Is it intentionally deemphasizing bad news the same as distorting graphs and charts to deemphasize unfavorable data? Why or why not? No that would be abusing the notion of deemphasizing bad news.

Analyze this message pg. 161

#4

(1) Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each sentence
(2) Revise the document so that it follows this chapter's guidelines

This is particular document is requesting information for Nick Oshinski. The last sentence in the first paragraph reads (This means, of course, that I would be the person best qualified to answer your request for information on Nick Oshinski); although this statement may be true, the person comes off sounding cocky and insincere. I would change it to say, "As the human resource director, I could easily answer your request for information..."

The first sentence of the second paragraph has a grammatical errors that standout. The body of this paragraph doesn't at all make the negative sound positive. The close statement did sum everything up but was not cordial.

If I had to rewrite this request this is what it would say:

Your letter to Kunitake Ando, President of Sony, was forwarded to me because I am the human resources director. In my job as HR, I have access to performance reviews for all of the Sony employees in the United States. So as the HR, I am most suitable to answer your request for information on Nick Oshinski.
In your letter on the 15th, you asked about Nick Oshinski's employment record with us because he has applied to work for your company. Mr. Oshinski was employed with our company for ten years. While he worked for this company, Mr. Oshinski received ratings ranging from 2.5 up to 9.6, with 10 being the top score. As you can see, over the course of time that Mr. Oshinski was employed here he learned the rules of the trade and found his on way to come out on top.

In summary, Nick Oshinski handled his task and managers very well which enabled his performance for this company to excel.

Email Assignment

Memo

Memorandum

View more documents from Lashonda803.