同济大学实用写作期末复习提纲

同济大学实用写作期末复习提纲

CHAPTER ONE

1.The conciseness, clarity, correctness and courteousness are very important.

2.There are two general types of workplace document, those that try to either inform the

reader about a product or service or persuade the reader that this product or service is a good one and worth buying.

3.The workplace writer chooses content and language which will best achieve their aim.

4.As with any form of communication, the most important factors in business communication

are purpose and audience.

5.The status of the people sending and receiving the communication includes bottom-up

communication, top-down communication and sideways communication.

CHAPTER TWO

1. A memo is used only for communication within a company, i.e. it is an intra-company

document and is not used for inter-company communication.

2. A memo may be distributed top-down or bottom-up.

ing first person words like ‘we’, ‘I’ and ‘our’ and second person words like ‘you’ and ‘your’

reduces the distance between the sender and receiver. Junior employees writing to senior employees can use these words, but they need to be careful that the right distance, and therefore courtesy, is maintained.

●Title(MEMORANDUM), Heading(To, From, Date, Subject), Body(Purpose, Background,

Request)

CHAPTER THREE

1.Letters of request are written to seek information and to obtaina response to a specific

enquiry.

2.Letters responding to requests give information but also attempt to build goodwill.

●Block format

The main feature of this format is that everything (with the possible exception of the company’s letterhead and logo) is blocked or justified to the left side of the page. With this style, it is not necessary to use commas or full stops in the date, address, salutation, or close.

●Salutation

If you know the name of your recipient, begin Dear Mr. or Ms. X and closeYours sincerely; if you do not know the recipient or their gender, begin Dear Sir/Madam and close Yours faithfully.

CHAPTER FOUR

1.Letters of complaint normally include the following information: an explanation of the

problem, the consequences of the problem for both parties and a request to solve the problem.

2. A letter of adjustment will normally include the following information in the given order: an

offer of apologies,a summary of action taken to rectify the problems and an assurance of

goodwill including the offer of compensation, if appropriate.

CHAPTER SIX

1.Abusiness report is divided into numbered section: introduction, procedure, findings,

conclusion and recommendations.

2. A business report is written because information which has been gathered needs to be

presented in an organized way. The length and format depends on the purpose of the report, the content and the intended audience or reader.

●Voices

The function of the passive voice is to make the information sound objective and impersonal, to remove any hint of personal bias.

●Tenses

To show the relevance of the information, writers often use the S. Pr. T. as the ‘default tense’, especially for the introduction and conclusion sections. Exceptions to this are when an event clearly took place in the past.

CHAPTER EIGHT

1.It is very important, but also quite difficult, to get the tone and style right in job application

letters.

2. A resume always contains particular information in sequence and under certain headings:

career objective, personal data, education and qualifications, employment record, extracurricular activities and awards, special skills, hobbies and sports and referees.

3.The most important language feature of a resume is its simplicity.

●Application Letter

Specifying the job being applied for, relating studies to job demands, mentioning relevant part-time work, referring reader to the resume, mentioning the qualities developed through project work, stating reasons for applying to this particular company, showing knowledge of company’s plans, linking language skills to company’s plans and giving contact details and stating available for interview

CHAPTER TEN

1.Minutes of a meeting are written for two main purposes: to create a record of what took

place in the meeting and to remind those at the meeting of the actions they need to take after the meeting.

2.Whatever the length, minutes always include the time and date of the meeting, the name of

all those present and absent, the agenda items discussed and all decisions reached and the time at which the meeting ended.

3.When writing minutes, we need to use reported speech.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1.We persuade others in three main ways: appeal to reason, appeal to emotions and appeal to

trust.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN