Workplace Communications The Basics Global Edition

Abstract

What’s New in the Sixth Edition? The sixth edition retains all the essential features of the earlier versions while incorporating much new material: • Updated model documents throughout. • New emphasis on writing as a three-step process: prewriting, drafting, and rewriting. • Streamlined coverage of workplace correspondence, with one comprehensive chapter devoted to memos, e-mail, and business letters. • More-tightly focused treatment of short reports. • Collateral coverage of evaluating—rather than simply delivering—oral presentations. • Additional discussion of finding, evaluating, and using print and electronic sources for research-based writing. • Targeted explanation of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting properly to avoid plagiarism. • Fresh examples of MLA and APA documentation styles. Hallmark Approach of Workplace Communications Workplace Communications: The Basics originated nearly fifteen years ago as the solution to a problem. Semester after semester, I had searched unsuccessfully for a suitable text to use in my English 110 course, Oral and Written Communication, at Mohawk Valley Community College. Designed as an alternative to traditional first-year composition, the course satisfies curricular English requirements for students anticipating careers in such fields as welding, heating and air conditioning, and electrical maintenance. As might be expected, English 110 is a highly practical, hands-on course that meets the specialized needs of its target audience by focusing exclusively on job-related communications. Although some excellent texts had been written in the fields of business and technical communication, nearly all were aimed at the university level and were therefore quite beyond the scope of a course like English 110. Finally, I decided to fill the gap and meet my students’ needs by creating a textbook of my own.