Does your writtng speak well of you?...

For Your Career Mobility :


DOES YOUR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION SPEAK WELL OF YOU?

In reviewing and evaluating what you wrote down in our interactive discussions of provocative topics relevant to business and management and in your submitted written assignments and exams, I noticed some hard-to-ignore weaknesses in written communication. Unless these weaknesses are remediated, they will continue to show up under your signature. Like it or not, these weaknesses will most likely shape the image that your co-workers and supervisor will form of you. Some people think that written communication errors are not important because these are supposedly "minor" matters. These people think that what matters is what you "do" or "produce" on the job relative to your job responsibilities, NOT your written communication. But, they seem to forget that a significant part of what you "do" or "produce" at work is written. What you write down and transmit to co-workers and supervisor exhibits a number of things that will inevitably be noticed and reflect on you negatively, such as --

* Writing run-on sentences that confuse your reader ;

* Making statements that are hard to follow or understand because the reasoning is flawed and the language is murky, ungrammatical, and confusing;

* Using words you don't truly understand;

* Making errors in written English that should not be made by people who are
college educated such as (to cite only three examples) :

(1) interchanging "their" with "there" repeatedly;

(2) not knowing the difference between

"you're" (which is a contraction of "you are") and "your" (which indicates a "possessive pronoun")

(3) not differentiating "sell" (which is a verb) from "sale" (which is a noun).

Of course, you may decide to dismiss the above examples as "Unimportant Details" and offer the excuse that "It's nothing serious" because these are "just examples of poor spelling."

It's certainly your right to make that decision just as it's your right to go in a wrong direction.

In closing this "Winding Up" conference, allow me to ask just two questions --

1) Can you think without using language?

(Note: You may not wish to admit it, but it's clear you can't think without using language.)

2) If you are haphazard and careless in the use of language, what happens to your thinking?

I feel sure you KNOW the right answer. But there's no need to tell me. Telling yourself will be best... for you and your career.

By the way, the above advice is appropriate for some members of our class, and not
for others. Since your career is important to you, I feel confident that you know whether to take or leave this advice alone.

Regardless of your decision, I wish you the best in all your endeavors, academic and otherwise.

~ Bing Inocencio, Ph.D. -