Whejong

I NSTRUCTOR ’ S M ANUAL
to accompany

WORKPLACE COMMUNICATIONS The Basics
Fourth Edition

George J. Searles Mohawk Valley Community College

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This work is protected by United States copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teachingtheir courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted. The work and materials from it should never be made available to students except by instructors using the accompanying text in their classes. All recipients of this work are expected to abide by theserestrictions and to honor the intended pedagogical purposes and the needs of other instructors who rely on these materials.

Instructor's Manual to accompany Searles, Workplace Communications: The Basics, Fourth Edition Copyright ©2009 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Instructors may reproduce portions of this book for classroom use only. All otherreproductions are strictly prohibited without prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. ISBN: 0-205-60337-8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10–OPM–11 10 09 08

Table of Contents
Introduction Chapter 1 The Keys to Successful Communication: Purpose, Audience, and Tone Chapter 2 Memos and E-mail Chapter 3 Business Letters Chapter 4 EffectiveVisuals: Tables, Graphs, Charts, and Illustrations Chapter 5 Short Reports: Page Design, Formats, and Types Chapter 6 Summaries Chapter 7 Mechanism and Process/Procedure Descriptions Chapter 8 Instructions Chapter 9 Job Application Process: Letter, Résumé, Interview, and Follow-Up Chapter 10 Oral Presentations: Preparation and Delivery Chapter 11 Proposals Chapter 12 Long Reports: Format,Collaboration, and Documentation 1

5 25 35 55 73 93 97 109 119 141 145 171

Appendices A. Ten Strategies to Improve Your Style Answers B. Review of Mechanics: Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar Answers Course Outline

201 221 231 253 259

Introduction
Designed to accompany Workplace Communications: The Basics, this manual is intended both for experienced instructors and for those who arerelatively new to the field. In each chapter I have provided supplemental commentary on the subject matter in the corresponding chapter of the text, along with reprints of selected visuals. This is to facilitate the creation of photocopies and transparencies for in-class discussion. Also included are exercise answers (where feasible) and reprints of the checklists for evaluating the variousassignments. If you wish, these checklists can become an integral part of your assessment procedure. Rather than laboriously annotating every student paper, you can simply attach a copy of the checklist, with the student’s errors indicated thereon. Over the years I have become firmly convinced that this approach is far superior to the more conventional practice of close editing. There’s nothing morediscouraging to the student—irrespective of the grade received—than to spend a great deal of time on an assignment, only to get it back a week or two later, covered with red ink and wellintentioned but ultimately deflating corrections. Moreover, there’s nothing more time-consuming and counterproductive for the teacher! Indeed, this carping, error-oriented response kills most students’ enthusiasm for thesubject, and causes burnout long before retirement for all but the most indefatigable writing instructors. Rather than fussily highlighting mistakes, put the ball in the students’ court, empowering them to take responsibility for their own

learning. Add a note on the bottom of the annotated checklist—something to this effect: Your report (attached) has some weaknesses in the area(s)...