Business and Professional Writing: A Basic Guide

The article discusses the significance of good communication and professional career and how proficiency in language have deteriorated over generations due to a gradual shift from a visual to aural media. It also suggests that improvement in communication skill is positively correlated with employment and that for the development of communication skills, there is no easy solution and time and effort are required to learn it.

ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
PART 1. (at least. 100 words)
Please make sure you write your name and user ID in the footer.
Hint: When blank, this template is 306 words. You are to write 800 words for A1. Therefore, the
overall word count for the whole A1 should be 1106 words (306 + 800 = 1106).
Reading Title Business and professional writing: a basic guide
Author MacRae, Paul.
AUDIENCE: Who has this been written for? (use complete sentences)
The article has been written for business professional and students and individuals who
would like to develop their writing skills in a business and professional context.
PURPOSE: Why has it been written? (use complete sentences)
The article has been written in order to support professionals to understand the various aspects of
effective business and professional writing and therefore help to develop effective writing skills
among them.
CONTENT:
Are there any headings or sub-headings in the document? If so, describe what they are and
what their function is (bullet points are fine)
Are there any images or diagrams in the document? If so, describe what they are and their
function (bullet points are fine)
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 The importance of good communication
 Our communication says something about us
 There are no shortcuts to good writing
 What we will learn
 Graph showing prose literacy and personal income differences between different groups
that can help to understand the influence of prose literacy and income.
 Graph showing employment rate by literacy proficiency that can help to understand how
the employment rate is influenced by the levels of literacy proficiency

ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
PART 2. (at least. 250 words in total. Use academic sentences
Fill in at least six sections, inc. 1 main idea + 3 supporting ideas in each section.)
Section # Main idea of this section
(What is the overriding idea of this part?)
Supporting/Secondary ideas
(May inc. examples, explanations, more
detail)
1 Before the advent of radio, television,
movies and the internet, proficiency in
English was good by default
1. Before the advent of radio,
television, movies and internet, the
main source of information for
people was through reading books
2. Reading more books improved
the sense of grammar
3. This by default increased
proficiency in the language even
without having to read grammar
books.
2 From 1950’s to 1990’s there has been a
shift in the emphasis from visual to aural
media for both information and
entertainment.
1. Structured approaches of learning
grammar and spelling are no longer
paid importance to.
2. It is now believed that forcing to
learn the stringent grammar can
curb the creativity of the child
3. Instead creativity is encouraged in
the form of flexibility in learning
grammar.
3 Creativity cannot be developed without
having a thorough understanding of the
underlying principles and rules of the
discipline.
1. Understanding the rules can help
to develop better usage of language
and thus improve communication
skills.
2. Creativity is the achievement of a
new approaches towards the desired
outcomes.
3. Understanding the existing
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ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
approaches and rules is necessary to
learn new ones.
4 For any profession, knowing the structural
details and rules are necessary.
1. For a doctor, knowledge of human
anatomy is vital
2. For an engineer, knowledge of
structures I vital
3. For architects, knowledge of
design is necessary
5 Budding writers are producing creative
work without a thorough grounding in the
basic rules of English grammar.
1. Schools are no longer emphasising
on the importance of grammar and
spelling
2. Many school systems sallow
students to develop their own way of
writing as a creative approach
3. The aural media further takes
focus away from grammar and
spelling
6 The trend towards written communication
is slowly increasing
1. Organizations are giving more
importance to written
communication
2. 20 to 40 percent of the times of
the engineers are now spent in
professional writing
3. Good writing skills also support
better professional growth.
7 Communication provides insights into an
individual or an organization
1. Communication skills can be
influenced by the ideas, knowledge
and attitude of people, and give an
insight into the personality
2. Communication support
credibility among customers
3. Communication skills also
represents knowledge
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ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
8 Erroneous communication can tarnish the
image of the business
1. Grammatical error creates a
negative impression
2. The errors can put the
competencies of people into
question
3. It can be professionally
disadvantageous.
9 Reputation is important for business 1. Involvement of capital investment
requires the sustenance of business
fir which reputation is necessary.
2. Bette reputation provides
competitive advantage
3. Better communication can
support better reputation.
10 Good writing does not have any shortcuts 1. Learning grammar takes time and
effort
2. Autocorrect options on software
cannot detect all types of
grammatical errors
3. Dependency on software
adversely impact grammatical sense
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ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
PART 3.
READING 1:
Reading Title Business and professional writing: a basic guide
Author MacRae, Paul.
SUMMARY: (150 words; you need to alter this number to reflect you actual
word count per section)
(include in-text and end-text references in Harvard style)
In this article the author discusses the significance of good communication and
professional career and how proficiency in language have deteriorated over
generations due to a gradual shift from a visual to aural media and resulting in
less and less people spending time reading. Instead the dependency on then
aural media and fast approaches have caused the students to not learn
grammar in a proper way. This have also been aggravated by the modern day
schooling systems and educators who no longer feel the necessity ensure that
the students learn the grammar and spelling and instead considers that doing
so can adversely impact their creativity, which is completely a wring notion as
per the author. The author also suggests that improvement in communication
skill is positively correlated with employment and also that for the
development if communication skills, there is no easy solution and time and
effort are required to learn it.
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ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
READING 2
Reading Title Essential study skills
Author Wong, Linda.
SUMMARY: (150 words; you need to alter this number to reflect you actual
word count per section)
(include in-text and end-text references in Harvard UniSA style)
In the article, “Essential Study Skills”, the author. Linda Wong discusses about important skills that
can be used by students to support their studies and understand their study materials in a better
manner. The article discusses various skills such as the paragraph levels skills, which are focused on
each paragraph within the material; understanding the main ideas if the study material; developing
annotations and listing information. These approaches can help students to strategically analyse and
arrange the information learnt from a material in a logical manner and thereby develop an
understanding of the overall concept by drawing relations between the factors and developing a
visualisation that can aid memory and build the concept in a more effective manner. This approach
can therefore help in the studies of the students and support better academic performance. This can
be possible by disseminating the materials paragraph by paragraph and outlining the key
information provided in the material.
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ASSESSMENT 1 TEMPLATE COMM1068
READING 3
Reading Title Essential study skills
Author Wong, Linda
SUMMARY: (150 words; you need to alter this number to reflect you actual
word count per section)
(include in-text and end-text references in Harvard UniSA style)
In this article “Essential Study Skills” by Linda Wong, discusses the importance of the stress and
stressors towards the physiological health of individuals. The author posits how stress have become
a commonplace in our day to day lives and professions. It has also been implied the importance of a
healthy lifestyle and how it can support better productivity. It is suggested that the high stress in a
work environment can often be disadvantageous for the employees because of the distraction
caused by stress. The author suggested that stress can be overcome by maintaining a healthy
lifestyle. Three important factors have also been identified by the author that can help in the
maintenance of a healthy lifestyle, these factors include good nutrition, adequate sleep and physical
exercise. By maintaining a healthy lifestyle, it is not only possible to avoid and minimise the impact
of stress but also increase productivity and performance of an individual.
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