Download The Great Courses – Written Communications: Being Heard and Understood 2024-1

Description

Written Communications: Being Heard and Understood is a course published by The Great Courses Academy. We’ve all encountered bad writing at some point in our lives. We probably even wrote some ourselves. It’s pretty obvious when the writing is bad. Whether you’re writing business letters, memos, emails, reports, announcements, or some other professional communication, being a pragmatic communicator can be much more effective than a verbose one. Because we are judged on our ability to communicate with direction, focus and confidence, communicating the right message is absolutely essential to achieving your goals. In 12 valuable lectures, Written Communication: Being Heard and Being Understood, Professor Alison Fredericks, assistant professor of education and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Denver, shares the secrets to improving your written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills. He’ll show you how effective communication really isn’t about you: it’s about your reader. Once you understand your audience, she shows you how to target the message, choose the right words, incorporate sound logic, and unpack complex syntax using a combination of examples and activities. The professor will also examine the interrelationship between language and culture by considering an age-old question about the nature of language, including the descriptive/figurative debate as well as the two levels of meaning each word has. You will understand how meaning is culturally constructed and how word meanings can change across times and cultures.

What you will learn

Professor Friederichs offers an analysis checklist to help you consider your purpose, your audience, your purpose statement, and relevant facts. It also gives you a chance to develop an outline of ideas. The analysis step saves you time by helping you create strong documentation right from the start.
As you work through writing your purpose statement, introduction, body, and conclusion, you’ll quickly see how handy a checklist can be. Professor Friederichs also outlines eight additional top practices that will help you create a well-written draft.
Here’s an opportunity to analyze your document with a reader-centric lens to make sure it says what you want it to say, in an organized, clear, and concise manner. While you won’t be proofreading your document at this stage, the editing checklist will help you check organization, word choice, clarity and conciseness, punctuation, and grammar.