 As-Salam-Alaikum. Welcome to the virtual university's course on business and technical communication. In this course we will be looking at the seven C's of effective communication and you will also learn how to choose as precise or as concrete a word as possible, select words that have high sense of appropriateness for the reader and opt for familiar words and words which are not pretentious. Basically this means that you need to opt for words which you are familiar with, which you are comfortable with and not use words just to show off your knowledge to the reader. You will also learn how to limit the average sentence to 17 to 20 words in a sentence and insert no more than one main idea into a sentence. Every sentence has a main idea and in this lecture we will look at how you can limit your sentence to one main idea per sentence. You will also learn how to arrange words so that the main idea occurs early in a sentence. If the main idea is coming too late in a sentence then it becomes very difficult for the reader to understand what the sentence is about. Having the main idea come early on in the sentence makes it very clear to the reader as to what they will be facing when they continue reading into the sentence. You also need to ask yourself does the communication have the you attitude. Also in this lecture we're going to talk about having someone else have a look at your statement if you have doubts about whether it's tactful or not. Another opinion may cause you to consider re-changing or remaking the statement. We'll also talk about being cautious in using humor in communication. Here too it pays to have someone else review your words. Using humor in your communication sometimes can be very very effective but you have to be very careful and therefore it's important to have someone else look at what you're writing so that your humor is appropriate and tactful. You also need to be careful in using discriminatory language. This means that you need to be aware of gender, race, age, color, creed or ethnic origins especially if you're using humor. Humor should not be at the expense of anyone's race or ethnicity and we will be looking at different examples on how this should be avoided. One of the main sees of communication is clarity and we're going to look at clarity in this lecture as well and along with courtesy. So let's have a look first at what it means when we say clarity. Clarity means getting the meaning from your head accurately to the reader and this basically is the purpose of clarity. A lot of our thoughts are in our head in our mind and we need to get them across clearly to the reader so that the reader is not confused about what we want to say. Remember you need to choose precise, concrete and familiar words and construct effective sentences and paragraphs in order to be clear. Now in choosing concrete and precise words, clarity is achieved through a balance between precise language and familiar language and also when you have a choice between a long word and a short word you need to choose the short familiar word. The golden rule is that when you are in doubt use the more familiar words. The audience will understand them better. For example you must use pay instead of renumeration and invoice instead of statement of payment. By using familiar words that you are comfortable with, your communication will be more will seem less strained and your audience will be more comfortable with it as well. Another example that I'm going to show you now on the screen unfamiliar words. The use of unfamiliar words would be after a perusal of pertinent data the conclusion is that a lucrative market exists for subject property. Now this is very difficult language. The words are unfamiliar to the writer. The writer has probably had to look at a dictionary to get a lot of these words out and they will undoubtedly be unfamiliar to the reader as well. The familiar words would be the data we studied show that your property is profitable and in high demand. Now this is obviously something that is much easier for the readers to understand. Although it is appropriate to use technical terms and business jargon in some professional situations, a word they use when the reader is not acquainted with the terminology. There are many technical languages, there are many such terminology and phrases that we cannot substitute. We cannot use other words in places because they can be used in that situation. For example when we talk about computers, there are many terms that we cannot use simply but if we know that our audience is not familiar with computers then it is better to simplify those words because that audience may not be able to understand the technical terms. For example an unfamiliar phrase would be assessed valuation and a familiar phrase would be property value for tax purpose. Another unfamiliar phrase charged to your principal, a familiar phrase for that would be increase the balance of your loan. You also need to, when you're choosing precise, concrete and familiar words, you need to be concise and with the increased use of email there is a tendency to be concise. The danger is that you must know the meaning of email acronyms which aid conciseness. Acronyms mean when there are words and we take their initials and make short words out of them. For instance IMO means in my opinion FAQ means frequently asked questions etc. So a lot of the times these are words that are used in email. These are words that are also used in technical emails. So you need to be aware of what these acronyms actually mean. We can also, we also call them, sometimes you call them abbreviations. We also need to know how to construct effective sentences and paragraphs because that is what is at the core of clarity and important characteristics to consider are length, unity, coherence and emphasis. Let's have a look at length and what we mean when we say, when we talk about length. An average sentence should be of 17 to 20 words. When the sentence length increases, you should try to chop it down to two sentences. This basically means that if you feel that your sentence is becoming much longer than 17 to 20 words, then you need to use some kind of a divider to chop that sentence into two sentences. Also, if the sentences are too short, then the resulting language becomes overly simple and choppy. If the sentences are too short, then it becomes very abrupt and very tense communication. So it is better to use those sentences instead of two sentences to make the sentence longer. But remember that the sentence should not be longer than 17 to 20 words. In a sentence, unity means that you must have one main idea. In case of other ideas, they must be closely related. For example, I like Sohail and Eiffel Tower is in Paris, is obviously not a unified sentence. In a coherent sentence, the words are arranged so that the ideas clearly express the intended meaning. Now, obviously your sentence will be coherent only if the meanings are clear and the ideas that you have in your sentence are clear to the reader. You need to place the correct modifier as close as possible to the word it is supposed to modify. In the examples which follow, you will notice that unclear sentences convey the wrong meaning. Let's have a look now at some examples where there is lack of coherence in the sentences. Let's have a look at another example. The unclear sentence says, his report was about managers broken down by age and gender. However, the clearer version would be his report focused on age and gender of managers. If this shows that the report was broken down, not the managers. Another unclear example is in this slide, after planting 10,000 berry plants, the deer came out into the botanist's farm and crushed them. The clear sentence would be, after our botanists had planted 10,000 berry plants, the deer came into the farm and crushed them. If we talk about emphasis, the quality that gives force to important parts of a sentence and paragraphs is emphasis. Now, this is something that is very important for clarity. We need to have emphasis at the right places and on the right ideas within a sentence. Most often we need to put main ideas up front within a sentence. This means that the main idea of a sentence should be in the beginning of the sentence. Writers must decide what needs emphasis and then decide the correct sentence structure. When we have a sentence, we have the idea in a sentence. Then as a writer, we need to decide which section of the sentence needs to be given more emphasis and then decide on the sentence structure. A lot of the times we may write a sentence or we may think of a sentence and then we change the structure because we feel that the emphasis is at the wrong place. Let us have a look at some examples. A sentence with little emphasis, the airplane finally approached the speed of sound and it became very difficult to control. Now, a better emphasis would be, as it approached the speed of sound, the airplane became very difficult to control. Similarly, in another example it says, candidates should be motivated and should have interest in dynamic and static testing of material and have those prerequisites and others. A better emphasis would be, as it approached the speed of sound, it became very difficult to control. Similarly, in another example, it says candidates should be motivated and should have interest in dynamic and static testing of material and have those requisites and others. A better emphasis would be pre-requisites in candidates should include expertise in dynamic and static testing of material. Now, in this there is obviously more emphasis in the sentence and the sentence is shorter as well. So, it makes it clearer to understand. Also, in addition to using the above methods of emphasis, the pieces of today allow different ways to visually add emphasis to words. When you are writing on a computer or typing in a computer, you can actually go into the grammar section of your computer and get different alternatives and different ways in which to write the same sentence which would be grammatically correct and which would give better emphasis. Some of them include headings, tabulations, itemization, line charts, pie charts, italics, indentation, colored capitals or even a wide range of short margins. So, apart from doing a grammar check and changing the emphasis within your sentence by changing the grammar, you can use all these aids within a computer as well. Now, three sentences and I would like you to note them down, correct them for clarity and send them in as an assignment. The first one is from an employee news bulletin and it says remember next Friday's paper drive, bring your papers, put them in paper bags and tie them. The second sentence, during a job interview the executive wants to hear what you can do in a few seconds and the third sentence says enclosed are your contracts on Gary Green in triplicate. You need to correct these sentences and improve them so that they have more clarity in them. We are now going to look at some examples which have problems of length, unity, coherence and emphasis and I would like you to consider these examples. They will be posted to you as an assignment and then you will need to correct them for clarity. Now, the first one says that it is from an employee news bulletin. The sentences are remember next Friday's paper drive, bring your papers, put them in paper bags and tie them. This obviously has a problem, it could be of unity, it could be of length, you need to decide what it is. During a job interview the executive wants to hear what you can do in a few seconds. You need to consider what is it that needs to be done in a few seconds. Does the executive want you to tell him what you can do in a few seconds or does the executive want you to tell him things in a few seconds. Few seconds may vo yeh cha raha hai ke aap kya kya kaam few seconds mein kar sakte hai yaa vo yeh few seconds mein yeh cha raha hai ke aap un few seconds mein usko yeh saari baate hai batayin. Enclosed are your contracts on Gary Green in triplicate. Something wrong in this sentence? Think about what it is and then you can get back to me. Mr. Jones wished factory employees May 9 and lectured on destructive pests. A large number were present. A large number of what were present? A large number of factory employees were present or a large number of pests were present? Your memorial day speech will be followed by a firing squad. Now this sounds odd as well. Why will a firing squad be following a memorial day speech? Advice in a newspaper's published recipe said one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Does this sound right to you? Working in a grocery several professors chat with him daily. Working in a grocery store several professors chat with home daily. This obviously somebody there is a pronoun or a name missing here and you need to decide where you should put that in. She wanted a policy for a house that cost 100,000 dollars a year. What cost 100,000 dollars a year? The policy or the house. Although working full time on the outside job, Jim's grades remained good. Again there is something definitely wrong in this sentence. Who was working outside? The grades or Jim? Thank you for your letter concerning the 10 pianos we received by air mail this morning. Now in this one is it the letter that was received by air mail or the pianos that were received by air mail? So the modifier is placed wrongly and you need to correct that. When only 4 years old this customer's mother died. Who was 4 years old? The customer or the mother? As an experienced certified public accountant I would like to ask your help with a problem my high school book keeping instructor assigned us to do. Now who is a certified public accountant? The person who is saying this or writing this or the person who is being asked to help? All the fauna exhibited a 100% mortality reaction. Who exhibited the reaction? The fauna. Now assume that you received a letter from a leading corporation and this letter was unclear to stockholders. You asked the chairperson that the letter needed simplification. The chairperson replied in the folding piece of writing. Look at the writing. Is it clear? If not, why not? Let's read it together. Yours is the first criticism we have from the many thousands of stockholders who have already sent their proxies saying that the purpose of the meeting was not understandable to them. I do not see how I can state the facts more clearly and simple them. Simple then was done in my letter of January 16th. There is obviously something wrong with this letter and you need to decide what it is. You may rewrite this letter and send this back to us. Let's check now all that we talked about regarding clarity. You need to choose as precise or as concrete a word as possible. Select words that have high sense of appropriateness for the reader. Opt for familiar words, ones that are not pretentious. Limit the average sentence to 17 to 20 words. Insert no more than one main idea into a sentence. Arrange words so that the main idea occurs early in a sentence and now we look at courtesy. True courtesy involves being aware not only of the perspective of others but also their feelings. We need to be considered towards people. We need to be courteous towards people. We not only need to think how they would think but we also need to keep their feelings in mind. Knowing your audience allows you to use statements of courtesy. Now if you know your audience then it's easier for you to use statements of courtesy and it seems more natural when you're using statements of courtesy as well. You also need to be aware of your message receiver so that you can be courteous to them. Courtesy stems from a sincere you attitude. If you keep thinking of I or we then it becomes less easy to be courteous but if you have the you attitude then it's easier to be courteous. We talked about the you attitude in the previous lecture. It is not merely politeness with mechanical insertions of please and thank you although applying socially accepted manners is a form of courtesy. Now it's not only enough to just say please or thank you if your tone is rude or if the message is abrupt. Please and thank you are socially accepted norms. They are terms that are very important but they're not the only terms that make courtesy. It is politeness that grows out of respect and concern for others that is also courtesy. Suggestions on how to be courteous would be that you need to be sincerely tactful, thoughtful and appreciative. You need to use expressions that show respect and choose non-discriminatory expressions. Now talking about being sincere sincerely tactful, thoughtful and appreciative. You need to use tact though very few people are intentionally abrupt or blunt. These negative traits are a common cause of discurtersy. Nobody wants to be abrupt consciously. Some people might want to be abrupt consciously but I think when people are communicating in business nobody really wants to be abrupt consciously. A lot of the times it comes unconsciously or subconsciously and we might not even be aware that we are being abrupt so we need to be very careful of that. Sometimes these abrupt or blunt expressions stem from a mistaken idea of conciseness. Sometimes from negative personal attitudes etc. Now a lot of the times when people are trying to be concise they become abrupt or blunt and that is something that we need to be careful about. Now let us have some look at some examples of tactless and blunt expressions. A tactless expression would be stupid letter. I did not understand any of it. It would be more tactful to say it is my understanding that this letter etc etc. Another tactless or blunt statement would be clearly you did not read my latest facts. It would be more tactful to say sometimes my wording is not precise. Let me try again. Tactlessly you could say I rewrote that letter three times. The point was clear. It would be more tactless to say I am sorry the point was not clear. Here is another version. Coming to thoughtfulness and appreciation. These traits help build goodwill and you need to be generous in appreciating others good performances. You need to show use expressions that show respect. No reader wants to receive messages that offend them. Such expressions that show respect are grouped into two. In the first group you need to omit using irritating expressions and in the second you need to omit using questionable humor. Questionable humor means humor that might not be humorous to all people. Every kind of joke does not suit everyone. So you need to be careful that whatever you are joking about is for that situation. Now talking of omitting, irritating expressions. The following is a consensus list that includes a list of expressions that many people find irritating. Contrary to your inference, I do not agree with you. If you care, I am sure you must realize etc. These expressions I think we all agree that if we say something, we will get irritated. Questionable humor, you need to when in doubt about the relevance of your humor, you need to leave it out. If you are not sure that your humor is going to be accepted well, please do not use those jokes. Laughter to one person is discussed for another. Each of us has a different sense of humor. So please be considerate of the listener's sense of humor or the reader's sense of humor when you are communicating with them. Their sense of humor might not be the same as yours. And let us have a look at an example where you need to look at the difference between the two notes. Note one is offensive. Hey man, what's this I hear about the good news? You sure pulled a fast one this past weekend and then didn't tell any of us about it. Give my regards to the little lady and wish her the best. She'll need it. Now this note is probably written from somebody who is very familiar with the other person but it is still very abrupt. The person who's written it has been trying to be humorous but it doesn't come across that way. It comes across as very abrupt and in fact in an irritating way as well. The more courteous note would be, warm congratulations on your wedding. Well you certainly took us by surprise. In fact just a few of us suspected that you were taking off to get married. But even though we didn't hear about it until later, we wish you the best. Give our warm regards to the new partner. Now this is obviously also to a friend and it's also very casual. It is giving good wishes and extending greetings but it is much more courteous. It doesn't seem rude. You also need to choose non-discriminatory expressions. Expressions that do not discriminate against anyone. In order to be courteous, you need to avoid using discriminatory language. You should choose non-discriminatory expressions like sexist terms, gender specific singular pronouns and you need to be careful when using names of men and women together. Coming to sexist terms, this basically means that when you're talking about males and females, you need to be careful in using terms that will show some kind of prejudice towards either sex. In communicating courteously, we need to be careful that we do not use discriminatory language. This means that you should use non-discriminatory expressions and avoid using sexist terms, gender specific singular pronouns and be careful when using the names of men and women together in terms of what names come first and how they are used. Let's have a look at some examples. First of all, when we talk of sexist terms, what do we actually mean when we say sexist terms? You need to be careful about using the man word. For example, instead of saying chair man, you need to say chair person because it can be equally used for a woman as for a man. In Western cultures than in others, this is a matter of more concern. In our society somehow, we are not always that conscious of using person instead of man but we should be because we have more and more women now in the workplace and it's not always suitable to use man where a woman is being talked about. Therefore, you need to use alternative expressions that are neutral in gender. For example, it's questionable to use freshman. It would be more desirable to use entering students or first year students since freshman implies that it's only men who are in the first year. Another example would be when we're using singular pronouns. English lacks a neutral pronoun, signifying he or she. We only have either he or she if you're talking about a singular person. We don't have a neutral pronoun for living beings. The trend to follow should be to avoid using he, his or him etc. and use they or them. For example, it's questionable to say anyone who comes to class late will get his grade reduced. It's more desirable to say students who come to class late will get their grade reduced. It's also questionable to say each customer will have the new changes noted on his bill and it's more desirable to say customers will have the new changes noted on their bill. This way, by avoiding the use of his, you're actually including men and women both in your communication. Another example would be our criteria, our firm. He is to be a scholar. He is to be a good teacher. Again, here we're talking only in terms of men and obviously it can be women as well who can be, who would be scholars. So, it would be more desirable to say something like I criteria suggest that he or she should be a good scholar and a good teacher. Another one would be you guys should all be concerned about the issue. Guys obviously only refers to men. So, it would be better to say both men and women, all of you should be concerned about the issue. Similarly, the executives may benefit from the stock options. He will etc. It would be more desirable to say the executive may benefit from the stock options. Each executive may etc. Instead of specifying a gender for the executive. Each manager has an assigned parking space. He should park his car at the rear of the building. It would be better to say each manager has been assigned a parking space. Each car should be parked at the rear of the building. Now when it comes to using names. When using names treat each gender with respect. Use names in parallel forms. For example, it would be undesirable to say if you're talking of a husband and wife. It would be undesirable to say Mudassar Ali and Sonia. It would also be undesirable to say Mrs. Ali and Mudassar because you're not giving them both equal respect or using them in parallel form. It would be more desirable to say, however, Mudassar and Sonia Ali because here then they look seem like a couple or Mr. and Mrs. Ali because in this way then you are treating them together and you're giving mutual respect to each person. Now we're going to look at some examples which have some element of discurty in the ethics that the communicator has used or that the communicator has. The examples might seem ethical to you at first glance but if you look at the explanations given in brackets then you will know that obviously there is no sincerity in the communication and I would like you to think about these and evaluate whether this in a business situation is actually the right thing to do. A manager said to a customer in writing or on the telephone, your request will be given a careful attention and we assure you that our intention is to be fair. Now this writer merely through the case in the file folder and told his secretary to forget about it and that he had no intention of working on it. He hoped that after a long wait the customer would forget that this manager had promised him that the case would be looked at. I would like you to think is this ethical communication, is this sincerity to your customer or to your client. Another case would be an advertisement where it was stated nationwide three out of four people prefer this amazing new product. Now actually this product was not nationwide tested. It was not tested across the nation. It was only tested in two or three states or two provinces of the nation and the advertisement claimed that nationwide so many people preferred it. I would like you to think is this ethically correct, is this sincere to the clients, to the people who are reading the advertisement to promote your product in this way just so that you can sell it. Let's have a look quickly at a checklist which will tell you if you have been courteous in your communication or not. Ask yourself does the communication have a sincere you attitude? Have someone else have a look at your statement if you have doubts about whether it's tactful or not. Another opinion may cause you to reconsider making a statement. A lot of the times when we are making a statement we might not be very conscious of what has gone wrong in that statement. So if you are writing it's very easy to have somebody else have a look at it. This is an advantage that we have when we are doing written communication that we can actually have other people read what we write unlike when we speak. We have used harsh words and I think courtesy has reduced our communication. So it's better to check if somebody has a look at it. We are not too discreet. You attitude means to think about the other person's reader and to keep his feelings in mind. As we mentioned earlier in the previous lecture it's important to have empathy with your reader. It's important to put yourself in the reader's shoes so that you can understand how the reader will feel when they read your communication. So if you keep that in mind then your communication will always be courteous. If you feel that if how would I feel if I was reading this communication or if I was reading this letter or message. It is important that we keep the emotions of the reader in mind and when we say you attitude. Having someone else have a look at your statement if you have doubts about whether it's tactful or not is very important. Another opinion may cause you to reconsider making a statement. Many times we say something in anger or in haste and then we regret it. I wish we didn't say something like that. Maybe we used a strong language. Maybe we said something more abruptly. It is very important that if we have doubts that we are going to say something like this. Those who are listening or those who are reading have some pain. So we should read it once from someone else. It is possible that our friend or our friend should give us such an advice that we should tone down our communication a little bit and abrupt it a little so that the reader gets less pain. Because whatever message we want to send, we want to register it. We don't want the reader to feel that we didn't realize that. So maybe we didn't feel that we used a strong language. If someone else read it then they would feel that this language has become too strong. So it is better that we take the advice. And in writing it is an advantage that we can read our written material more than once and read it from someone else as well. In spoken material, in speech it is a problem that we can't check our conversation with anyone. If we are debating then it is fine. We read it first, practiced it, spoke in front of our friends. But in normal conversations we can't check our conversation with anyone. But in writing we have this advantage so we should take advantage of it. We also need to be cautious in using humour in communication. Here too it pays to have someone else review your words. When we tell someone else our conversation, show them that please check it. We won't say it too much. We won't say it too harshly. Similarly, if we are joking or using humour in communication then it is better to check it. Let's see if we have made too much of a joke. Whether the reader will like this joke or not. Whether the reader will like this joke or not. Whether the reader will like this joke or not. You also need to be careful in using discriminatory language. We looked at that as well. And this means being aware of gender, race, age, colour, creed and religion and ethnic background. Obviously it won't be good for anyone that if in any communication, someone is shown a slap or a slap, we should talk in such a way that their emotions reach taste. So it is better that whatever we do in communication, we should keep this in mind that we should give equal respect to men and women. We should give equal respect to every religion, race and ethnic background. And when we talk about them, we should keep their emotions in mind. So in this lesson we have looked at clarity and courtesy. And up till now we have looked at 6 out of 7 C's of communication. In the next lesson we will look at correctness and move on from there. And with this we come to the end of this lecture. See you next time. Allah Hafiz.