In a recent commentary in Lancet Psychiatry, Veryan Richards, member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Patient and Carer Committee, discusses the importance of language in mental health care.Richards argues that language has a powerful impact and therefore more efforts should be made to use language that is destigmatizing and accurately descriptive. Question 1 10 out of 0 points Why is it more important to monitor your word choice in a professional environment than in personal communication exchanges? Revised Paragraph. Business writers work to be clear and direct in meaning, and drawing attention to details about race, age, country of origin, disability, and gender in the workplace might cause conscious or unconscious bias. Learn how the words you use paints the picture the person you're communicating with sees. Business writing is known for being direct and to the point in most situations, so you should favor active rather than passive verb constructions. If you are trying to avoid throwing someone under the bus, one strategy is to de-emphasize the actor or subject in the sentence. Selecting precise words will help you increase the impact you create on your audience. The University of Chicago Press. Use of underline font provides emphasis without the startling impact of all capital letters. When filing the report, employees should make sure they included yesterday’s data. Allied Sales shipped the late order at its own expense with overnight delivery to make up for the missed shipment. Some companies have decided to include instructional DVDs that demonstrate the controls. You-view, or putting the reader first, encompasses two skills: Lynnette has worked hard to find a lost shipment. If some technical terms are absolutely necessary when speaking to an audience, be sure to explain each term and its context. While many may know that it means “ok” or “I understand”, it is not clear to all outside those circles. When filing the report, each employee should make sure he or she included yesterday’s data. For example, if you are writing a department-wide memo, it would be acceptable to use terms specific to your company or department. For the manufacturer (sender) the information is easy and cheap to print. In a subtle, but important improvement, Lynette should write, “Your product is scheduled for delivery March 30. Here are a few techniques to help avoid bias. Its forms include am, are, is, was, were, and will be, had been, is being, and was being. To build on what Maria Rosales, best-selling author and History professor as Duke University wrote in her article “The Importance of Word Choice,” words can poke fun. The audience (your reader, if the message is written) is the receiver of the business communication. One of the biggest benefits of using a varied word choice is that it Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. However, the email does not take the you-view. The month-end income statement showed a loss. The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Neglecting this aspect of your writing may mean that the message is lost or misinterpreted. As a general rule, avoid using labeled nouns when talking about people with disabilities. The Visual Thesaurus is an online dictionary and thesaurus that displays the word you are looking up at the … Additionally, you should vary your sentence types for more engaging reading. That cart did not work any more. Or, think about a clothes washing machine. Improving vocabulary skills will improve their understanding of novels and textbooks. You could argue that the first sentence is correct in that “cooking,” “jogging,” and “to read” are all grammatically valid conclusions to “She likes.” However, when you put them together, the lack of parallelism leads to an incorrect sentence. Numbered lists are used when order of importance matters. When the passive voice is used too frequently, it can make your writing seem flat and drab. ], Whiskers ate her tuna. All three verbs are gerunds, whereas in the first sentence, two are gerunds and one is an infinitive. If you are writing a newsletter for customers, however, it would be better to avoid jargon and use broader language. Six Principles of Word Choice The word is applied to phrases that have lost their meaning through overuse: e.g., outside the box, in this day and age, plagued by doubts, read between the lines Please view this thirteen minute video about the impact and power in focusing on the audience. Concise business writing uses clean, straightforward sentence structure to improve understanding and retention. Finally, become aware of your own bad habits. Put the receiver first. To make them parallel, the sentences should be rewritten with just gerunds or just infinitives. John is one of our most active employees. If a RX5 cable is shipped an EU45 must be shipped at the same time. Thanks for your help. How else would the reader see this? Thanks for your help. Word choice could make a difference in how your voice is heard and your writing is … (Parallel elements are independent clauses that could stand alone as sentences. The exclamation mark is clearly a mark of personal enthusiasm. Maintaining parallelism can also keep you from unintentional bias. Please see the corporate request. That is why the language and the words we use are important. Distorted, inaccurate enunciation acts as a barrier to communication while mispronunciations cause words to be confused and can lead to costly errors in comprehension. Some common imprecise word choices that can almost always be replaced with stronger, more precise words include the following: good, bad, thing, stuff, important. Business writing uses simpler sentences to be more concise and thus less likely to be misinterpreted. Good writers are constantly aware of the impression each word carries. When I started thinking about getting a new job, I was completely clueless. Sometimes, for the newer writer, it might be easier to think of a predictable rhythm or format when working on how to achieve parallelism. To achieve parallelism, identify where the sentences start to be different, in this case, after “to.” Therefore, what comes after “to” is what your list should be made of in order to be parallel. The organization, word choice, and tone of your message allows the communication to be received and understood while maintaining a positive business relationship. You may have noticed something unique about the previous passive voice example: the passive voice can be used to “hide” who performed the action. Too much salt is off-putting and may even be sickening. It will come across as a vanilla idea. Findings from Goddard (1989) suggest that sentence length is related to reader comprehension. When speaking about a racial or ethnic group, deciding which term to use can be a tricky subject because the ascribed meaning to particular terms and labels can frequently change. Context affects how people interpret the message. Selecting funny words for serious chapters can actually suck the importance right out of the contex. More important than putting praise or criticism first is putting the student’s strength in the sentence’s main clause. Think of written communication as a process with multiple players; often, at the most basic level, there exists a writer, a message to be conveyed, and an audience of one or more readers. To be conjugates irregularly. Too often managers try to soften their orders by saying “I think” or “Perhaps…”- but this actually detracts from your authority and reduces the likelihood … If all choices are related to considering the receiver’s needs over those of the sender, the message is more likely to achieve its purpose quickly. For the tire changer (receiver) a personal assistant is easier, but more expensive. Do we have enough manpower to finish this project? PJ-Friendly Writing Groups for Undergrads, About the Writing and Communication Centre. Other plumbers will understand those terms in the context of plumbing, but to non-plumbers, those terms may have different meanings or be entirely nonsensical. A word choice is an important part of any communication. Why is the passive voice so hated? 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