Positive Messages- Reading and Lecture

To-Do Date: Jul 3 at 11:59pm

In this chapter we will work on crafting positive and negative (bad news) messages; using the direct strategy to write and respond to customer messages, including customer complaints and, the indirect strategy to deliver bad news to customers/employees. The assignments this week will be to discuss effective delivery of negative (bad news) messages and responding positively to customer complaints. 

Writing Assignment tips- Achieving professional tone in your writing 

It is likely that this is your first introduction to professional writing. In the past, you have been taught to assume a formal tone in your written essays from language arts/English classes. In the real business world, you will be using a casual yet professional tone in your everyday message writing. In the writing assignment where you were tasked with revising an email message, part of the assignment was to revise the formal tone and formal use of language to a more conversational sounding message with informal, everyday, plain language. For example, the message used the word script to describe the information or content written on slides. In the real world, you would use the commonly used words to describe script- either content, information or simply, written words. One of your biggest tasks in learning professional writing is to strike the balance between casual, yet professional tone. You can use many writing techniques to help you achieve this goal. Below, in the reading for this week is a helpful article that discusses these writing techniques. 

 

Reading/Viewing: 

Read/Study:

Chapter 8- Positive Messages (textbook)

Types of Positive Messages Links to an external site.  (Links to an external site)

Stop Trying to Sound Smart When You're Writing Links to an external site. (Links to an external site)

Conversational But Professional Writing Links to an external site. (This article does include exercises with their answers so you can refer to them as examples. You do not need to complete the exercises.)

View/Listen:

Positive Messages Lecture Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.) 

Positive Messages- Example Messages Download Positive Messages- Example Messages

Positive Messages-Full chapter slides Download Positive Messages-Full chapter slides

Assignments:

Writing Assignment: Delivering Bad (Negative) News due: July 8

Writing Assignment: Direct Response due: July 8

Discussion: Analyzing a Bad News Message due: July 8

Grammar assignment: Writing Concise Sentences due: July 8