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Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric
A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Business Communication and Rhetoric in the field of technical communication.
- Introduction to the Forum on Meaning/ful Work Studies in Organizational Communication
Onthe first day of Nikki's undergraduate seminar, Organizing Work, she Oasksstudents to list the idioms and phrases commonly used to make sense of the 'work' experience. She shares the example of her father repeat- edly using the phrase 'dailygrind' when she was growing up (important to note, he was not referringto the ubiquitous Starbucks of today). Slowly but surely, the chalkboard fillswith an array of idiomatic expressions: 'on the clock,''worklike a dog,''all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,''workyour fingers to the bone,''all in a day's work,' and ahost of others, including the Marxian favorite, 'a fair day's pay fora fair day's work.' Students are asked to reflect on the meanings embeddedwithin the list and how language constitutes cultural meanings and valuesof work. As such an exercise should make abundantly clear, work and meaningwould seem to be central to our study of organizational communication. Ourtalk about work both embodies and structures individual and social under-standings, attitudes, and actions. Yet, the meanings associated with workand the notion of work as meaningful have not been foci of study within ourdis- cipline. Indeed, the term work is not even indexed in the New Handbookof Organizational Communication (Jablin and Putnam, 2001), and a searchof the EBSCO database found not a single article with work and either meaningor meaningful in the title in a communication journal. Given contemporarydevel- opments that make work more central to people's lives as well as lesssecure, the question of what work means to people and how such meanings contributeto or detract from a sense of purpose or dignity in people's lives is importantto consider. - Communication Strategies for Implementing Organizational Change
This work advances a stronger conceptual and empirical understanding of two broad, conceptual communicative treatments for implementing change: programmatic and participatory. These theoretical approaches are elucidated respectively through established communication models, activities, and strategies advanced by previous scholarship within the communication and business disciplines. In addition, conclusions are drawn about the supposed limitations and benefits of using these change implementation approaches in applied settings. This article concludes with potential strategies for advancing for research in this arena. - A Transformative Typology of Pragmatic and Ethical Responses to Common Corporate Crises: Interaction of Rhetorical Strategies, Situational Contingencies, and Influential Stakeholders
Scandals, accidents, product problems, criminal activity, deception or fraud, misconduct, harassment, discrimination, financial or regulatory improprieties, malfeasance, misappropriations, or ethical breaches can not only damage the reputation of corporate executives but can reek financial havoc on the value of a company’s brand 'assets.' When companies face these types of crises they are compelled to act quickly and decisively in order to limit their brand and image losses and seek to repair the 'black eye' to their corporate 'face' as effectively as possible. Although companies will attempt a wide range of actions and messages as symbolic appeals to that organization’s constituent publics, there is little certainty about what types of actions and messages are persuasive. - Uncertainties and Resistance to Change
This paper aims to fill a gap between knowledge and practice about the effectiveness of rhetorical strategies in the communication of change inside large private organizations. - Tips for Getting to Know Your Audience
Effective communication requires understanding the target population and how it operates. That need to understand runs the gamut: sometimes it's simply information gathering, other times it's copy testing, or it may mean monitoring the effectiveness of a campaign. But before you start any campaign, you need to know your audience. - Make Your Internal Communications Memorable with Strategic Storytelling
Jean-Paul Sartre said, “We understand everything in human life through stories.” I believe that is true. We comprehend better when a message is related in story form, and we also feel a stronger rapport with the person telling the story. Why not use these memorable stories in your internal communications? When you cram too much information into a communication, training session or presentation, you’re doing a data dump on your listener. Nothing sticks. Yet, if you’ve ever had a supervisor tell a story to illustrate a point, you learned the lesson and probably enjoyed the learning process, too. - Adding an Informal Touch to Organizational Communication
Some say it's a revolution that will change radio broadcasting and people's listening habits forever. Others say it's a fad that's of limited appeal or use to anyone but geeks and enthusiasts.Whatever anyone says, something that has rocketed out of nowhere and gotten big companies and radio stations alike interested (and after only eight months) must be worth investigating. That "something" is called podcasting. - They'll Thank You for Sharing: Make Those Reports, Memos and White Papers Clear and Readable
Words, words, words. It seems as if we're being asked to write something every minute for every need and occasion. Your boss wants a report; your colleagues need a memo explaining a procedure; your clients send e-mails that need to be considered and answered; your company's products or services should be described in a descriptive white paper, and on and on.How can you deal with all that? Are there any general writing rules that apply to business writing of all sorts? - Internal Communication: Let's Be Clear
Internal communication isn't generally seen as a direct, short-term contributor to the bottom line, and therefore it is not considered "hot." More to the point though, people's understanding of what communication is and how it can work is extremely varied and often plain wrong. It seems that what makes internal communication "hot" is still mainly understood only in professional communication circles. - Applying the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Technical Recommendation Reports
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) can help proposal writers identify effective document design techniques and parts of arguments that are critical to persuasion. In addition, ELM has implications for other types of technical communication, including recommendation or feasibility reports. While one would anticipate that decision-makers would be willing and able to evaluate critically all arguments presented in a recommendation report, ELM explains why this is rarely so. Therefore, technical communicators can profit by understanding and using the two routes to persuasion or attitude shift, the central and peripheral routes, explained by ELM. - A Systematic Approach to Visual Language in Business Communication
Although business communication relies heavily on the visual, current approaches to graphics and text design are prescriptive and unsystematic. A 12-cell schema of visual coding modes and levels provides a model for describing and evaluating business documents as flexible systems of visual language. Emphasizing clarity and objectivity, the 'information design' movement has generated guidelines for creating functional visual displays. However, visual language in business communication is seldom rhetorically 'neutral' and requires adaptation to the contextual variables of each document, a goal the writer can achieve by com bining visual and verbal planning in the same holistic process. - "You're a Guaranteed Winner": Composing "You" in a Consumer Culture
This article explores the functional elegance of direct mail as it constructs its target audience. More specifically, it examines direct mailings included in a nationally publicized court case involving Publishers' Clearing House and articulates how the use of particular genre-based, rhetorical and linguistic strategies in these mailings construct reader identity. It argues that the documents use you-attitude to construct the identity of the reader as winner, implied reader devices to reinforce the reader's identity as winner and to establish the reader's identity as the writer's friend, and linguistic politeness strategies to build feelings of solidarity of the reader toward the writer. It concludes with the observation that the direct mail in our study, rather than being "junk," is really a skillfully written set of documents, successfully interweaving various discourse strategies and raising both ethi