Tribhuvan University, BBS First Year New Course-2078-Notes and Summaries

 

Patterns for College Writings                  

Introduction

This book is for reading as well as writing so every reading selection here is followed by questions and exercises designed to help you become a thoughtful and proficient writer. The essays and the study questions here encourage you to think critically about writers’ ideas. Although, some of the questions, particularly those listed under comprehension, call for fairly straightforward, factual responses, other questions in Journal entry, invite more complex responses that reflect your individual reaction to the selections.

 

“What’s in a Name?” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

 

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was born in 1950 in Virginia, the USA. He has edited and published several volumes of literary criticism by African-American writers but he is probably best known as a social critic. Before Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights of 1965, Civil Rights Act of 1968, the discrimination and prejudice towards black and minority were at high in the United States.

In this short anecdotal essay, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recalls his experience of prejudice and discrimination to the black people in the United States. The black people were given different derogatory terms to address them by the white people including blood, nigger, negro, dark, moor, Jim Crow, porch monkey, George etc. He says that he had forgotten an incident that happened to his father when he was a child. A white neighbor called Mr. Wilson from his community called his father “George” but his father’s real name was not George moreover, Mr. Wilson knew his father’s name. His father just smiled and said hello to that neighbor. When Henry asked his father why he was called George instead of his real name, his father replied that he and other white people use the word “George” to indicate all the black people in that community. That incident changed the writer’s attitude towards the white people especially that person who called his father “George” and started to ignore them by looking directly to their eyes. It was his revolt toward the white people who discriminated and prejudiced the black.

 

The basic elements of responding to an essay are listed below:

 

i)                    Comprehension: It is about our understanding of the text. We find what is actually talking about in the text in this section.

ii)                  Purpose and Audience: The writer must have addressed particular group of readers in the purpose and audience. The question: ‘Whom the text is written for?’ means the writer has already mind make up the purpose and audience.

iii)                Style and Structure: How the writer presents his ideas using different style and structure such as arrangement of ideas, paragraphing, sentence structures, word choice and imageries.

iv)                 Vocabulary: The using of different kinds of words and phrases is comes under the vocabulary section.

v)                   Journal Entry: It is the short piece of the writing by the students regarding the text where the students present their own ideas about it.

vi)                 Writing Workshop: By the time you approach the Writing Workshop assignments, you will have read an essay, responding to study questions about it, discussed it in class, and perhaps considered its relationship to other essays in the text. Your next step will be to write an essay in response to one of the Writing Workshop questions.

vii)               Combing the patterns: The pattern of the above essay is narrative however the writer also combines the exemplification, which deals with presenting examples, pattern as well.

viii)             Responding to Other texts: Responding to the Other texts helps you to understand the image and shape your response to it. The first selection of texts (chapter 6 to 14) deals with Reading Images, Journal Entry, and a Thematic Connections and the final selection in each chapter, a story or a poem, is followed by Reading Literature, a Journal Entry, and Thematic Connections.

 

Part One: The Writing Process

Every reading selection in this book is the result of a struggle between a writer and his/her material. Writing is no easy business, even for a professional writer. Although, there is no simple formula for good writing, some approaches are easier and more productive than others.

 

The writing process:

i)                    Invention: Invention is also called prewriting during that time you decide what to write about and gather information to support or explain what you want to say.

ii)                  Arrangement: During arrangement, you decide how you are going to organize your ideas.

iii)                Drafting and revising: During drafting and revising, you write several drafts as you reconsider your ideas and refine your style and structure.

iv)                 Editing and proofreading: During editing, you focus on grammar and punctuation as well as on sentence style and word choice. During proofreading, you correct spelling, mechanical errors, and typos and check your essay’s format.

 

Chapter 1

Reading to Write: Becoming a Critical Reader

You will learn to answer study questions and prepare for class discussions in this chapter. You will also read to evaluate the ideas of others, to form judgments, and to develop original viewpoints that mean you will engage in critical reading.

 

Understanding Critical Reading:

Actually, reading is a two-way street. Readers are presented with a writer’s ideas, but they also bring their own ideas to what they read. After all, the readers have different national, ethnic, cultural, and geographical backgrounds and different kinds of knowledge and experiences, so they may react differently to a particular essay or story. These differences in readers’ responses do not mean that every interpretation is acceptable, that an essay or story or poem may mean whatever reader wants it to mean. Readers must make sure they are not distorting a writer’s words, overlooking or ignoring significant details, or seeing things in an essay or story that do not exist. It is important for all readers to agree on a particular interpretation of a work. Every interpretation must be developed to support the work itself.

 

Determining your purpose:

Before you start reading, you should ask yourself some questions about your purpose-why you are reading. The answer to these questions will help you understand what kind of information you hope to get out of your reading and how you will use this information.

 

Previewing:

When you preview, you try to get a sense of the writer’s main idea, key supporting points, and general emphasis. You can begin by focusing on the title, the first paragraph which often contain a purpose statement or overview, and the last paragraph which contain a summary of the writer’s main idea. You should also look for clues to the writer’s message in the passage’s visual signals and verbal signals. Visual signals include title, paragraphs, first sentence, heading, numbered items, bold items, italicized items, graphs, charts, boxed or colored. Verbal signals include emphasis of the phrases, repeated words or phrases, addition, sequence, causes and effects, examples, comparison and contrast, contraction, summaries or conclusions etc.

 

Highlighting:

You mark the text by using different highlights. Underlying important concept, box key terms, numbering a series of related points, draw a vertical line in the margin, arrow etc. are the examples of the highlighting process.

 

Brent Staples

Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis by (Insert Name)

Brent Staples was born in 1951 in Chester, Pennsylvania. He is a writer and member of the editorial board of the New York Times. He has worked in different news papers and magazines of the United States. His memoir, Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White (1994).

 

Background on prevalence of cheating and plagiarism in high school and college

Brent Staples deciphers the unethical activities of plagiarism by cutting and pasting other writers’ works as their own. Not only the high school and college students are involving in such dishonesty but also high level scholars and teachers are also involving in plagiarism. It is an ethical issue because one is not allowed to cheat other without mentioning other writers’ name and books. So, Staples researched and found out that most of the college and high school students and teachers are engaged in literary dishonesty or plagiarism.

Many students and teachers feel pressure to submit their works on time but it doesn’t mean you engage in nasty work of cheating others’ writing by cutting and pasting from internet. This is a serious issue that can lead our education system corrupted and nobody will involve in serious research in future. That’s why, Staples suggests to challenge the students to write their own and discourage them by giving negative markings to those who engage in plagiarism.

 

Chapter 2

Invention

Invention is also known as prewriting activity and an important part of writing process. At this stage, you discover what interests you about your subject and consider what ideas to develop in your essay. When you are given a writing assignment, you may be tempted to start writing a first draft immediately. Before writing, however, you should be you understand your assignment and its limits, and you should think about what you want to say.

 

Understanding Your Assignment

Almost everything you write in college begins as an assignment. Some assignments will be direct and easy to understand, others will be difficult and complex so before beginning to write, you need to understand what your assignment is asking you to do. You must follow the instruction given in the assignment so that your assignment will be understood easily.

 

Setting Limits

Once you understand the assignment, you should consider its length, purpose, and occasion and your own knowledge of the subject. Each of these factors helps you determine what you will say about your subject.

i)                    Length: Sometime your instructor will specify the length of a paper, and this word or page limit has a direct bearing on your paper’s focus but if your instructor sets no page limit, consider how the nature of the assignment suggests a paper’s length.

ii)                  Purpose: Your purpose also limits what you say and how you say it. You can classify your purposes for writing according to your relationship to the audience. You can express your ideas by expressive writing, informative writing and persuasive writing.

iii)                Audience: You write your essay for particular audience in mind. An audience can be an individual, a group or a general or universal audience.

iv)                 Occasion: Occasion refers to the situation that leads someone to write about a topic. In academic writing, occasion is always a specific assignment. The occasion suggests a specific audience.

v)                   Knowledge: Knowledge means what you know about the subject matters of your assignment. What you know determines what you can say. Before writing any subject, ask yourself what you know about the subject and what you need to find out.

 

Moving from Subject to Topic

Although many essays begin as specific assignment, some begin as broad areas of interest or concern. These general subjects always need to be narrowed to specific topics that can be discussed within the limits of the assignment. Two strategies help you narrow a general subject to a specific topic:

i)                    Questions for Probing: The questions for probing are useful because they reflect how your mind operates-for instance, finding similarities and differences, or dividing a whole into its parts.

ii)                  Free-writing: Another strategy for moving from subject to topic is free-writing. You can use free-writing at any stage of the writing process-for example, to generate supporting information or to find a thesis. However, free-writing is a particularly useful way to narrow a general subject or assignment.

 

Finding Something to Say

Once you have narrowed your subject to a workable topic, you need to find something to say about it. Brainstorming and Journal Writing are useful tools for generating ideas and both can be helpful at this stage of the writing process.

i)                    Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a way of discovering ideas about your topic. You can brainstorm in a group, exchanging ideas with several students in your composition class and noting the most useful ideas. You can have many useful ideas that can be jotted down in the order in which you think of them.

ii)                   Journal writing:  Journal writing can be useful source of ideas at any stage of the writing process. Many writers routinely keep a journal, jotting down experiences or exploring ideas they may want to use when they write. Those journal entries are the kernels from which longer pieces of writing develop.

 

Grouping Ideas

Once you have generated material for your essay, you will want to group ideas that belong together. Clustering and outlining can help you do grouping ideas.

i)                    Clustering: Clustering is a way of visually arranging ideas so that you can tell at a glance where ideas belong and whether or not you need more information. Although you can use clustering at an earlier stage of the writing process, it is especially useful now for seeing how your ideas fit together.

ii)                  Outlining: As an alternative or follow-up to clustering, you can organize your notes from brainstorming or other invention techniques into an informal outline. Informal outline do not include all the major divisions and sub-divisions of your paper the way formal outlines do;  they simply suggest the shape of your emerging essay.

 

Understanding Thesis and Support

Once you have grouped your ideas, you need to consider your essay’s thesis. A thesis is the main idea of your essay, its central point. The concept: Introductory paragraph (Thesis), body paragraphs (supports for thesis), concluding paragraph (restatement of thesis or review of key points).

 

Developing a Thesis

i)                    Defining the Thesis Statement:

A thesis statement is more than a title, an announcement of your intent, or a statement of fact. Although a descriptive title orients your readers your readers, it is not detailed enough to reveal your essay’s purpose or direction. An announcement of your intent can reveal more, but it is stylistically distracting.

ii)                  Deciding on a Thesis: Your thesis statement depends on the scope of your assignment, your knowledge of the subject, and your method of writing. When you know a lot about a subject, you may come up with a thesis before doing any invention activities (brainstorming and free-writing).

iii)                Stating your Thesis: It is a good idea to include a one-sentence statement has three characteristics:

a)       An effective thesis statement clearly expresses your essay’s main idea. It does more than state your topic, it indicates what you will say about your topic, and it signals how you will approach your material.

b)       An effective thesis statement communicates your essay’s purpose. Whether your purpose is to evaluate or analyze or simply to describe or inform, your thesis statement should communicate that purpose to your readers. Your thesis can be expressive, informative or persuasive.

c)       An effective thesis statement is clearly worded. To communicate your essay’s main idea, an effective thesis statement should be clearly worded. The thesis statement should give a straightforward and accurate indication of what follows, and it should not mislead readers about the essay’s direction, emphasis, scope, content, or viewpoint.

iv)                 Implying a Thesis: Like an explicitly stated thesis, an implied thesis conveys an essay’s purpose, but it does not do so explicitly. An implied thesis is especially useful in narratives, descriptions, and some arguments, where an explicit thesis would seem heavy-loaded or arbitrary.

 

Chapter 3

Arrangement

Each of the tasks discussed in chapter 2 represents choices you have to make about your topic and your material. Now, before you actually begin to write, you have another choice to make-how to arrange your material into an essay.

 

Recognizing a Pattern

Sometimes arranging your ideas will be easy because your assignment specifies a particular pattern of development. This may be the case in a composition class, where the instructor may assign a descriptive or a narrative essay. Certain assignments or exam questions suggest how your material should be structured. The important thing in recognizing pattern is to recognize the clues such as assignments give and to structure your essay accordingly. The patterns for your essay may be as follow:

i)                    Narration: In narration you can ask the questions: What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Who did it?

ii)                  Description: What does it look like? What are its characteristics? What impressions does it make?

iii)                Exemplification: What are some typical cases or examples of it?

iv)                 Process: How did it happen? What makes it work? How is it made?

v)                   Cause and effective: Why did it happen? What caused it? What does it cause? What are its effects?

vi)                 Comparison and contrast: How is it like other things? How is it different from other things?

vii)               Classification and division: What are its parts or types? How can its parts or types can be separated or grouped? Do its parts or types fit into a logical order? Into what categories can its parts or types be arranged? On what basis can it be categorized?

viii)             Definition: How can it be defined? How does it resemble other members of its class? How does it differ from other members of its class?

 

Understanding the parts of the Essay

No matter what pattern of development you use, your essay should have a beginning, a middle, and an end- that is, an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

i)                    Introduction: The introduction of your essay, usually one paragraph and rarely more than two, introduces your subject, creates interest, and often states your thesis. You can introduce your essay using background information, original definition, with an anecdote or story, with a question, with a quotation, surprising statement, contradiction, fact or statistic etc.

ii)                  The Body Paragraphs: The middle section, or body, of your essay develops your thesis. The body paragraphs present the support that convinces your audience your thesis is reasonable. The body paragraphs should be unified, coherent and well developed. A paragraph is unified when each sentence relates directly to the main idea of the paragraph. The main idea of a paragraph is stated in a topic sentence. The topic sentence, placed at the beginning of the paragraph, enables readers to gasp the writer’s point immediately. Each body paragraph should be well developed and the sentences are supported by examples, reasons, facts, statistics, details, expert opinions, personal experiences and visuals.

The Conclusion

 Conclusion always ends your essay in a way that reinforces your thesis and your purpose of writing your essay. The conclusive paragraph is rarely larger than a paragraph. The conclusion must be consistent with the rest of your essay-that is, it should not introduce points you have not discussed earlier. So, conclusion is the restatement of your essay’s main idea or reviews your key points.

 

Chapter 4

Drafting and Revising:

After you decide on a thesis and an arrangement for your ideas, you can begin to draft and revise your essay. You can generate more material while you are drafting and revising your essay.

 

Writing Your First Draft

The purpose of your first draft is to get your ideas down on a paper so that you can react to them. You should rearrange and cross out your material while drafting and revising.

 

Revising Your Essay

Revision is not something you do after your paper is finished. It is a continuing process which you consider the logic and clarity of your ideas, as well as how effectively they are presented. It is not only the matter of proofreading or editing, of crossing out one word and substituting another or correcting errors in spelling and punctuation; revision involves re-seeing and rethinking what you have written. The following advice can help you when you revise your essay:

i)                    Giving of a cooling-off period: Put your first draft aside for several hours or even a day or two of you can.

ii)                  Revise on hard copy: Because a printed out draft shows you all the pages of your paper and enables you to see your handwritten edits, you should revise on hard copy instead of directly on the computer.

iii)                Read your draft aloud: Before you revise, read your draft aloud to help you spot choppy sentences, missing words, or phrases that do not sound right.

iv)                 Take advantage of opportunities to get feedback: Your instructor may organize peer editing groups, distribute a revision checklist, refer students to writing center, or schedule one-on-one conferences.

v)                   Try not to get overwhelmed: It is easy to become overwhelmed by all the feedback you get about your draft. To avoid this, approach revision systematically. Don’t automatically make all the changes people suggest; consider the validity of each change.

vi)                 Don’t let your ego get in the way: Everyone likes praise, and receiving negative criticism is never pleasant. Experienced writers know, however, that they must get feedback if they are going to improve their work. Learn to see criticism whether from an instructor or from your peers- as a necessary part of the revision.

vii)               Revise in stages: Deal with the large elements (essay and paragraph structure) before moving on to smaller elements (sentence structure and word choice).

 

Revising with a Checklist

If you have time, you can use the following revision checklist, adapting it to your own writing process:

i)                    Thesis Statement

ii)                  Body Paragraphs

iii)                Introduction and Conclusion

iv)                 Sentences

v)                   Words

 

Revising with an Outline

If you do not have time to consult a detailed checklist, you can check your essay’s structure by making a review outline. An outline can also show you whether you have omitted any important points.

 

Revising in a Peer Editing Group

Revising with in a Peer Editing Group is a strategy of revision involves getting feedback from other students. Sometimes this process is formal: an instructor may require students to exchange papers and evaluate their classmates’ work according to certain standards, perhaps by completing a peer editing worksheet.

 

Revising with Your Instructor’s Comments:

Your instructor’s written comments on a draft of your essay can also help you revise by suggesting changes in content, arrangement, or style. It also may question your logic, suggest a clearer thesis statement, ask for more explicit transitions, recommend that a paragraph be relocated, or even propose a new direction for your essay.

 

Points for Special Attention: First Draft

 

The Introduction: When you write your first draft, your instructor or your peer editing may suggest you to change some points, sentences, paragraphs, introduction, body, conclusions etc. It may help you to write a clear and perfect essay.

 

The Body Paragraph: The body paragraphs support the thesis statement. Each body paragraph has a topic sentence and all other are supporting details of the topic sentence. The body paragraphs should be coherent to each other so that the message you want to give your readers becomes clear and precise. The body paragraph must include all the details that support your thesis statement. You must use transitions words like therefore, for this reason, for example, as a result, perhaps, although, however, instead of, when, at first, second, at last etc. that connect all the paragraphs and make coherent.

 

The conclusion: The conclusion is the restatement of thesis statement. To conclude your essay with thesis statement, you must include key points or important details in short at the last paragraph of the essay.

 

Points for Special Attention: Second Draft

The student writers should include all the suggestions and comments from your instructor or a peer editing group. The introduction, body and conclusion should be resized or reorganized as per the suggestions that may change your essay’s purpose, thesis, supporting details of whole essay. The other thing you should consider in second draft working with sources because here you can add quotations and other people’ writing and you shouldn’t forget to mention them in your writing and bibliography.

 

Chapter 5

Editing and Proofreading:

When you finish drafting and revising your essay, it is tempting to print it out, hand it in, and breathe a sigh of relief but it should be resist because you still have to edit and proofread your paper to correct any mistakes or problems that may remain after you revise. When you edit, you search for grammatical errors, check punctuation, and look over your sentence style and word choice one last time. When you proofread, you look for surface errors, such as spelling errors, typos (typing error), incorrect  spacing, or problems with your essay’s format.

 

Editing Grammar:

First of all, you must find the grammatical errors and correct them. Sometimes the grammatical or other problems cannot be seen in the computer screen but in hard copy. You must consider the following rules for editing grammar:

 

Be Sure Subjects and Verbs Agree: Most of the time subject verb agreement errors are occurred so you must consider the subject and verb agreement.

Be Sure Verb Tenses Are Accurate and Consistent: Sometimes the student writers forget to correct verb tense so you must be sure enough to make precise your verb tenses errors.

Be Sure Pronoun References Are Clear: The pronouns and their antecedents must be clearly referred.

Be Sure Sentence Are Complete: Sometimes the sentence aren’t be completed and give the different message than you think so you must write complete, short and precise sentences.

Be Careful Not to Run On Sentences Together without Proper Punctuation: You must focus on run on sentences that most of the student writers commit. The run-on sentences must be completed with proper punctuation.

Be Careful to Avoid Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers: Modifiers confuse the readers so you must be careful while using modifiers. Dangling modifiers can create confusion so you must avoid using dangling modifiers in your essay.

Be Sure Sentence Elements are Parallel: Parallelism is the use of matching grammatical elements such as words, phrases, clauses to express similar ideas. You must avoid the errors of unpaired items. You should write paired items, and items in series carefully.

 

Editing for Punctuation:

Like grammatical errors, certain punctuation errors are more common than others, particularly in certain context. By understanding a few punctuation rules, you can learn to identify and correct these errors in your essay.

Learn When to Use Commas: You must properly use commas in the sentences otherwise it will give different meaning and your readers could be confused. Commas are comma, semicolon, inverted comma, double inverted comma and they must be used carefully.

Learn When to Use Semicolons: Like commas, semicolons should be precisely. Semicolons separate certain elements of a sentence. Mostly semicolon separate two grammatically equivalent elements such as two closely related independent clauses.

Learn When to Use Quotation Marks: The quotation marks or double inverted comma express someone’s saying so it must be quoted properly.

Learn When to Use Dashes and Colons: The dashes and colons are also important in correcting grammatical errors. Dash is used to connect to grammatical items and colon is used to break the sentence and start numbering, bulleting or series of the items.

 

Editing Sentence Style and Word Choice

As you edit your essay for grammatical and punctuation errors, you should also be looking one last time at how you construct sentences and choose words. Your sentences should not only correct but concise and varied so that your essay would be clear, readable and convincing.

Eliminate awkward phrasing; be sure your sentences are concise and be sure your sentences are varied. Other thing is to choose your words carefully such as avoiding vague and clichés; choose specific words.

 

Proofing Reading Your Essay

 When you proofread, you check your essay for surface errors, such as commonly confused words, misspellings, faculty capitalization, and incorrect italic use; then, you check for typographical errors.

Check for commonly confused words: even though, you have carefully considered your choice of words during the editing stage, you may have missed some errors and commonly confused words such as affect-effect, bum-bump, there-their, then-than etc. can be seen in your essay.

Check for Misspellings and Faculty Capitalization: It makes no sense to work hard on an essay and then undermine your credibility with spelling and mechanical errors. It you have any doubt about how a word is spelled or whether or not to capitalize it, check a dictionary.

Check for Typos:  Always focus on typing mistakes such as extra letter, omitted letter, putting space correctly.

 

Checking Your Paper’s Format

The final thing to consider is your paper’s format-how your paragraphs, sentences, and words look on the page. Your instructor will give you some general guidelines about format-telling you, for example, to type your last name, and the page number at the top right of each page-and, of course, you should follow these guidelines.

 

Part Two

Readings for Writers

The relationship between reading and writing is a complex one. Sometimes you will write an essay based on your own experience; more often than not, however, you will respond in writing to something you have read. When you read the essays in this book, you should approach them critically. You must question the writer’s ideas; try to interpret differently; avoid biased ideas etc.

In the following section we will read two essays each of the narration, description, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, definition, argumentation.

 

Essay

An essay is a non-fictional piece of writing especially dealt with a particular subject. It is used to describe, analyze, argue, and clarify etc. to the particular subject. We study the different types of essays below:

 

Narrative Essays

Narration is a process of telling a story by presenting events in an orderly, logical sequence. Narration can be the dominant pattern in many kinds of writing and speech especially histories, biographies, and autobiographies as well as personal letters, diaries, journals, and bios on personal blogs, social sites, and WebPages etc. Sometimes people use narration on casual talking too.

Here are some tips to write narrative essay:

i)                    Developing a thesis statement: We develop our thesis statement in the first paragraph of our essay and present the sequence of events to complete it.

ii)                  Including enough details: Narrative needs the rich, specific details and they need to be convincing. The narrative must be interesting and authentic.

iii)                Varying Sentences: In the narrative, we can use the varying structures of the sentences. Some long compound sentences and some simple sentences can be used.

iv)                 Maintaining clear narrative order: Whatever the narrative situation might be, it should be chronological order. He/she may use the flashback technique, but it must follow the perfect elements and units of the actions. And the narrator must use the accurate verb tense that should follow the sequence of events.

v)                   Using transitions: The transitions are the connecting words or phrases that help link events in time, enabling narratives to flow smoothly.

 

Bonnie Smith-Yackel: My Mother Never Worked

Bonnie Smith Yackel’s ‘My Mother Never Worked’ is an irony to the societies who don’t value the works of women. The social security policies didn’t approve the housewives as the beneficiaries of pension. So, Smith-Yackel frustratingly wrote this to challenge or appeal to change the government policies of social security because most of the housewives work more than their husbands.

When her mother died, she contacted to Social Security Fund for the insurance. The Social Security rejected to pay the bill of her mother’s insurance amount by saying that her mother never worked and not eligible for the social security then she wrote this essay in one sitting. She presents the works done by her mother in her lifetime. Those works that had done by her mother would not be eligible for social security but in her view her mother did work a lot that a woman can do in her lifetime. That’s why she satirizes the societies who don’t value the works of women since they work much more than a man do to earn money in the offices, organizations or in companies. She urges us to give importance the works of housewives who never tire of doing those households from the early morning to the midnight.

She expresses how her mother struggled in her life not only upbringing up her children and family but also uplifting the economic status of the family. Her mother worked hard till her last breadth. She had done all kinds of works like caring her children and keeping domestic animals, gardening the different types of vegetables and crops for their income. She managed to make own clothes using rags and feathers of the birds. She fetched water from almost half mile away to feed the animals and washing clothes. She had had harsh life when they were beginning family life. They didn’t have their own lands so they rented the lands and started to work hard to earn money to have their own land. She was a strong woman of having eight children and worked as much as a woman could do in her lifetime.

 

Sandra Cisneros: Only Daughter

Sandra Cisneros’ Only Daughter is a narrative essay that expresses the discrimination between the sons and the daughters in Chicano or Mexican-American family. There are a lot of social problems in those societies where one of them is to discriminate the son and daughter. The daughters are inferiors than the sons. Cisneros opens up her essay with the examples of the societies around the world where the sons are given high values and the daughters are marginalized or discriminated as inferior human beings. So, the writer focuses her essay about the bias that the societies of modern world even think that the daughters are not as important as the sons.

 

Cisneros’ father or the parents have six sons a daughter. Beingonly daughter, the writer lives a life of a pariah in her family. She focuses on reading and writing jobs. Her father used to boast that he has seven sons. The writer doesn’t like to be compared herself with her brothers because she wants to make her own name and fame. The writer’s father is little bit unhappy because he doesn’t have all the children as sons. Her father sometimes used to say that he has six sons and a daughter but the daughter is ‘only daughter’ not more than that. That kinds of behavior from her father the writer wants to become some special to the societies where the daughters are hated and marginalized. As her father from the Mexican-American background, he doesn’t know the English language but the writer starts to write articles and books in English language. She wants to show her father that she is not pitiable creature but she is someone who could do that which the sons can. After graduating from the universities, she starts to live in Chicago and she flourishes her career there. She writes a lot of stories, essays and other articles. She became famous in America as a writer but her father doesn’t know that. Luckily, one of her stories is translated into Spanish and that story is read by her father. One day, she visits to his fathers’ house where his father is laying on bed having the victim of paralysis. When she reaches her father’s room, her stories are scattered in her father’s bed. They talk and share their lives. At last, when the writer is going to get out from his father’s room, her father asks when the stories are going to be translated into Spanish. At that moment the writer feels proud herself that her father has given her importance and her father’s eyes are filled with tears that he has been doing wrong to his daughter who is only one.

 

In this way, the writer tries to destroy the stereotypes of behaving the daughters as the inferior than their sons. She is able to become one of the writers of Chicano culture to destroy the barriers of the societies.

 

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive essays convey the reader the physical characteristics of a person, place or thing. Description relies on the five senses- sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.

Make sure that you focus on understanding objective and subjective description. In objective description, we focus on the object rather than the personal views or reactions to it and it gives the factual information but in subjective description, we focus personal response to the subject and it expresses personal choice of words, indirect and sometimes not explicit to all. It relies on the connotations of words, their emotional associations. It also includes figure of speech such as simile, metaphor, personification, and allusion (indirect or passing reference) etc.

Heather Rogers: The Hidden Life of Garbage

Heather Rogers’ essay ‘The Hidden Life of Garbage’ about environmental pollution that can affect the human beings around the globe in future. The consumer culture; and its result of producing a huge amount of garbage in the United States, can be a serious problem. She minutely describes the views of Morrisville landfill sites in Pennsylvania, USA. The GROWS (Geological Reclamation Operations and Waste System) has a landfill site of 6000-acre garbage treatment complex and the part of Waste Management Incorporation. The landfill site is far from the human settlement and it is veiled and guarded that means the general public are not allowed to go there. The scenarios of the garbage treatment are hidden from the public. The operations of the garbage treatment complex are hardly believable to the general public because it is unthinkable that garbage collections can be so much amount that they are steadying like hills.

 

Rogers shows us the bizarre sight of the landfill site through her essay. The landfill has a big compactor, dozens of rollers, trucks, incinerators etc. that are working all day and night to destroy the trashes especially from the New York City. The huge mountain of the garbage is stinky, sour and horrible smell where the seagulls hover to find out food from the wastage. The sound of machines and vehicles smoothly runs over the area. When the garbage is trashed, there are liners that hold all those wastages that are set upped underground. The area of the liners is neat and tidy with green trees and fenced by a thirty-five feet wall. Those liners are capable of holding a lot of trashed and they are hardly filled with those trashes. If the liners are filled up, they are capped. Those liners are used for preventing contamination the ground water of that area.

 

Although the people around the globe have been producing a lot of trashes every day, the Americans are top of the world which produces 300 million tons of garbage almost 4.5 pounds per person alone. They don’t know that how those trashes are treated in landfill sites. If they see the procedures of the garbage management and the people doing their jobs, people could ask difficult questions that cannot be answered by our politicians, industrialists, and other concerned person. For this moment we are managing the trashes from the people by using modern technologies and tools but it will definitely be difficult to handle in the future if people increase the amount of garbage they produce. The most dangerous situation could arise if the trashes produce toxic.

 

Jhumpa Lahiri: Rice

Jhumpa Lahiri describes her father’s behavior and his everyday routine from morning to night in her essay ‘Rice.’ She admires her father and his way of making ‘Pulao.’ Lahiri explains his father’s way of making pulao and its ingredients minutely. The rice is actually a favourite dish in China, India and most of the South Asian countries but the pulao is the special rice dish that is made using different kinds of spices and ghee. The rice is cooked in such a way that every single grain is not joined together. Its flavor is very different from traditional rice so the south Asian people offer pulao in special occasions like marriage ceremonies and parties.

 

The pulao was such a demanding dish that every person would request it to be made from her father for any occasion. He used to make pulao for everyone from the small Bengali society in England and in the United States also. The first time the writer ate her father’s pulao was in her ‘annaprasan’ ceremony and he has been making pulao since then. Now Lahiri’s son and daughter were lucky to have the pulao made from their grandfather on the occasion of their annaprasan ceremonies. She had respect and admiration to her dad’s decisions and the passion he had towards making his favourite dishes.

 

Cause and Effect Essays

The cause and effect essay analyzes why something happens. Cause and effect essays examine causes, describe effects, or do both. In writing cause and effect essay, one should understand main and contributory causes, immediate and remote causes, casual chain; and avoiding post hoc (occurring or done after events) reasoning.

Stan Cox: The Case against Air Conditioning

Stan Cox regularly writes about sustainability, ecology and agriculture. His essay ‘The Case against Air Conditioning’ explores the massive use of air conditioner in the USA and its effects in environmental and human health. He argues that the Americans are relying on ACs to avoid the heat and the number of ACs are increasing but they have other results too. The ACs are power-guzzlers and emit the greenhouse-gas. The use of ACs for avoiding heat can be a relief from severe heat waves but using it lavishly can arise serious issue-global temperature.

 

The modern AC was built in 1903 by Willis Carrier, a device that chilled and dehumidified air by forcing it over coolant-filled coils. For the first decades of the twentieth century, air conditioning mostly served industrial purposes, cooling factories, textile mills, and printing plants. Gradually, the technology spread to hospitals, hotels, and movie theatres. Then the uses of ACs in residential buildings started after World War II when the manufacturers built smaller units. Since then the AC has becoming one of the essential household appliances in American society. Now, almost every American has been using AC either in homes, offices, and every malls and stores.

 

Cox argues that before the invention of air conditioner, people have the different ways of resisting heat. When the air conditioner was invented people started to use it knowingly or unknowingly about the disadvantages of AC. So, the writer wants people not to use AC rather try to find the natural way of life as before the invention of it.

 

Lawrence Otis Graham: The ‘Black Table’ is Still There

Lawrence Otis Graham is an upper-middle class African-American who graduated from the Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In this story ‘The Black Table is still There,’ Graham tries to reflect the time of desegregation in the United States in 70s and 80s when the Supreme Court in 1954 found segregation of public schools unconstitutional and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required public school systems to implement integration programs.

 

This story expresses his experiences as a junior high school student, in which he chose not to sit at the all-black table, and his return to the school fourteen years later, in which he finds the all-black table still there along with other segregated tables. In the process, Graham reveals the superficiality of integration in society and the importance of being your own person instead of following the crowd. He finds the segregation is wrong and his Jr. high school has made little progress against it. Lawrence thought by sitting at the all-black table would be making anti-white statement, and he would lose all of his white friends. He didn’t want to separate into a group; he believed people who separated themselves from others are the cause of people not communicating well with different religion or racial groups. There were other separate tables than the all-black table like athletes’ table, a Jewish girl and a Jewish boy table, an Italian table etc. Graham finds that sitting those tables the students are still segregating themselves from the whites so there is still a problem of segregation. All throughout Jr. High school he felt that people shouldn’t separate themselves because it’s not a way of integration.

 

Comparison and Contrast

In narrowest sense, comparison shows how two or more things are similar, and contrast shows how they are different. In comparison and contrast essay, one should recognize comparison and contrast assignment, establishing a basis for comparison, selecting points for discussion, developing a thesis statement for better writing. You must also know the using subject by subject comparison, using point by point comparison; and using transitions.

 

Bharati Mukherjee: Two Ways to Belong in America

Bharati Mukherjee expresses the condition of Indian Americans in the USA who have been settled down there for a long time. She compares and contrasts the conditions of her sister Mira Mukherjee and her own who have come to America about 30 years ago for pursuing higher degree in education and job. They both live there for a long time and get PR (Permanent Residency) as citizens of the United States of America. They have contributed their precious time in America for the development of the nation. Bharati Mukherjee married and settled down in Canada. But the new law of American constitution amended by the US government has discriminated to the people who came to America for employment and education. American government has passed the bill for the betterment of native white Americans but the contributions given by the others like Indian, Chinese, Japanese and all the people from around the globe have been demeaned by the steps the American president.

Mira Mukherjee married an Indian boy who was also living as a PR in America and he has also contributed his life’s precious time there and Mira has the contribution to the field of primary education system in America but the new law will leave them to be outsiders in America who have been living there for more than three decades. Bharati Marries an American-Canadian and settled down in Detroit and taken the citizenship of America but her sister who is an ideal person and wants to live retired life in India has been facing the problems of not taking American citizenship. So, the writer tries to differentiate the conditions of her own and her sister Mira who have equal contributions to the development of America. Mira is living as an outsider because she didn’t take the citizenship but Bharati has taken the citizenship and married to a Canadian American.

 

Amy Chua: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

According to Amy Chua’s essay “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, she argues that Chinese parenting style can raise their children become more successful than the Western parenting style. Her children were not allowed to do attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, get any grade less than A, and not play the piano or violin and so on. Chinese mothers are much stricter than western parents, even though some western parents think themselves as strict to their kids. For example, her western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day, an hour at most. For Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It is hours two and three that get tough.

 

The author uses a case of 50 western mothers and 48 Chinese mothers living in the US. The result of the study indicated that the Chinese mothers believed more that academic success is directly correlated to good parenting. Chinese parents tend to give more time in supporting their kids with academic activities, unlike western mothers who prefer sport activities. Chinese mothers and western mothers have three main differences. First, western parents are nervous their children fail to their work whereas Chinese parents think their children are powerful. Second, Chinese parents think their children think themselves as I owe my parent while western parents feel their children have their own duty. Finally, Chinese parents think themselves as knowing what their children want to, so they try to lead their children to their own pursue. In contrast, western parents tend to focus on their children’s self-esteem.

 

Definition

A definition essay tells what a term means and how it differs from other terms in its class. In definitive essay, you must know developing a thesis statement, deciding on a pattern of development, and phrasing your definition.

Judy Brady: I Want a Wife

In ‘I Want a Wife’ Judy Brady, the author talks about all of the duties she does as a wife and a mother and then goes on to talk about how she wants someone to do the duties for her. The author wants a wife because she wants to be able to be as independent as her husband.

 

In this piece of writing or essay, the author is somewhat bitter over everything that she is expected to do as a wife. She takes care of the children, takes care of the home and takes care of her husband. The speaker wants more time for herself and wants to be able to be an independent woman. Her desire for a wife comes after a recently divorced male friend lists everything that he needs a wife to do for him. She laments that she is expected to cook, clean, take care of children and please her husband in a romantic way. She no longer wants to do these things and wants to live a life where she has her own wife. When she is tired of that wife, she will begin to look for a new one who will take over all of the duties of the previous wife.

 

In another sense, Brady tries to shows us the importance or the necessity of wife for a man to live an easy life because most of the works are done by the wife for her husband sake. She ironically presents the tasks that a wife does for her husband and family. The writer also tries to express the feeling of a wife or wives around the world that they too have the important roles to make their husbands’ success.

 

Gayle Rosenwald Smith: The Wife-Beater

 

Gayle Rosenwald Smith offends the name of a tank-style undershirt named wife-beater in this essay. The name of the t-shirt itself is offensive because the name indicates an abusive person who beats his wife. This is totally unacceptable in modern society.

Actually, the wife-beater is a popular t-shirt or undershirt everyone wants to wear to be a fashionable and sexy either it is a man or a woman. The name of the t-shirt is originated from the people who used to beat their wives wearing such kinds of undershirt in Southern part of the US. Then the famous Hollywood celebrities wore it in their famous films and it has become the brand of a t-shirt. Now, this t-shirt comes in various colours, sizes and price ranges and every young want to wear it. Some company tried to make the anticipation of the wife-beater but the brand wife-beater is too much popular than others.

Smith disagrees the name because it suggests an abusive person and no one wants a person who beats his wife. Young people might not accept it but it couldn’t be acceptable for everyone.

 

Argumentation essays

Argumentation is a process of reasoning that asserts the soundness of a debatable position, belief, or conclusion. Argumentation takes a stand- supported by evidence- urges people to share the writer’s perspective and insights. In argumentation essay, you must follow these terms- choosing a topic sentence, developing a thesis, analyzing your audience, gathering and documenting evidence, dealing with the opposition, Rogerian argument (not all arguments are or should be confrontational) etc. The student writers must know the deductive and inductive arguments- using deductive argument (general to complex), inductive argument (hypothesis and collecting evidence), the Toulmin logic (six components: claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal and backing), recognizing fallacies (a mistaken belief), and using transitions.

 

Alex Tabarrok: The Meat Market

Tabarrok talks about the black market of human organ in the US in this essay ‘The Meat Market’. The title suggests something catchy for some readers but the essay deals with the current condition of the human organ black market that supplies the human organs to the needy people. It is not easy to find the human organ either consent or non-consent.

Organ donation is a difficult process. There is a wide gap between the available organs and the patients who are waiting for the transplantation. Different countries have different policy to obtain human organs. Iran has somehow successful to maintain the organ donation but most of the American and European countries have the difficult to maintain those gaps.

The black markets have been providing human organs in America and other countries but there is always a problem of healthy and adaptable organs because the black markets don’t care about the healthiness of the organs they sell. They have contributed in the field of human organs but it won’t be able to maintain the gap between donors and owners until the government play effective role in this field.

 

Daniel Engber: Let Them Drink Water!

Daniel Engber writes about science, culture and sports for the online magazine. This essay talks about the fat tax. The writer argues that the government and other organization should avoid the junk foods and soda which are main reasons for obesity.

Most of the American kids prefer delicious and junk foods rather than healthy foods. Most of the government organizations have removed the junk foods and drinks from their premises but the customers prefer to have fast foods when they are outside. The reference of fat tax by the US government, the writer develops his argument to say that taxing junk foods and soda is justified.

Using junk food and soda or cold drinks can be harmful and they are taken as the food for the hedonic (pleasant) hunger. We do not eat junk food to stay alive but for pleasant. When food is scarce, hedonic hunger comes in handy (convenient to handle), so we can stock up calories for the hard time ahead. People do not accept that soda is as bad as tobacco but the writer makes the argument in the logical manner explaining that these junk foods make us fat. We are eating chocolates for our brain’s pleasure system. And it helps to change the functional connectivity among important brain regions.

Public has the reservation about the taxing on the junk foods and the soda because the use of soda and the cigarette can’t be same though tax on the both types of the commodities had been implied on the same time. Engber finds it ironical to the reference that if all the people are advocating for healthy eating only the writer that does not have any harmful ingredients mixed in it. He supports his generalization by showing that both are harmful for the human health. Then why don’t we let them drink the water only?

 

Business English

Grammar and Writing Mechanics

Grammar:

Grammar helps to simplicity the whole system and structure of language by classifying the many words into parts of speech and parts of sentences, and identifying the rules on their correct use. Briefly, the following are the key topics to be aware of when thinking about grammar.

Verbs:

The verb is the most important part of speech in a sentence. It expresses an action or a state of being. Every complete sentence must have a verb. Some sentences-compound, complex, and compound-complex-have more than one verb. A simple sentence may contain a compound verb. When you are constructing sentences, remember that you should build each sentence around the verb.

Verb types:

Sentences are constructed using two types of verbs. The two types of verbs are action verbs and state-of-being verbs.

·         Action verbs: An action verb expresses an act. It adds power and precision to your communication. Create, invest, lose, negotiate, organize, praise, and buy are examples of action verbs. The action verb is italicized in the following examples:

-          I check my e-mail once a day.

-          The company liquidated its assets.

-          Jivan designed the technology survey last week.

·         State-of-being verbs: A state-of-being verb expresses the five senses (hear, smell, see, taste, and touch). Other state-of-being verbs include is, am, are, was, were, seem, appear, will be, and have been. These verbs join or link one part of a sentence to another. State-of-being verbs are less powerful and less precise than action verbs. The state-of-being verbs are in italics in the following examples:

-          The building repair will be completed in august.

-          The constitutional election is history in Nepal.

-          Business is recruiting to normal after the Indian blocked.

Verb Tense:

Verb tense indicates the time that action occurs. Six verb tense forms are used to indicate time. The six tenses are categorized into two groups-simple tense and perfect tense.

·         Simple tense: The simple tenses are present, past and future. The time of action or state of being of each simple tense is designated by its name.

# Present tense: A present tense verb expresses action that is going on at the present time or action that is continuing or habitual. Present tense verbs also may be used to indicate general truths. Verbs showing present tenses are in italics in the following examples:

-          Arjun is hiring an assistant. (present time)

-          Drona tallies the sales for the department at the end of each day. (continuing)

-          Photocopy machines facilitate communication within organizations. (general truths)

# Past tense: A past tense verb indicates action that has been completed. Verbs in the past tense have two forms-regular and irregular. The past tense of regular verbs is formed adding -d or ed. The past tense of irregular verbs is formed by changing the root word. Regular and irregular verbs in the past tense are shown in italics in the examples:

-          Jenish asked for a raise. (regular- ask [root word] + ed)

-          Jenish saved 10 percent of his paycheck each month. (regular-save [root word] + ed)

-          Jenish spoke to a group of high school students about accounting careers. (irregular- speak [root word])

# Future tense: A future tense verb is used to indicate actions that are expected to occur in the future. Future tense is formed by using will before the present tense form of the verb. The following sentences show verbs in the future tense in italics:

-          Will the company picnic be held on the 4^th of July?

-          Christine will send a copy of her itinerary to Mr. Joseph.

·         Perfect tense: A perfect tense verb shows action that has been completed at the time the statement is made. The perfect tense requires a form of the verb have, along with the past participle of the main verb. (Participles are discussed at the end of this section.) The perfect tenses are present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect.

# Present perfect tense: A present perfect tense verb refers to an action begun in the past and completed in the present. Present perfect tense may also refer to habitual or repeated past action. This tense is formed by adding has or have to the past participle of the main verb. The following examples show verbs in the present perfect tense in italics:

-          Mr. Subedi has served as the company spokesperson for 10 years.

-          She has rented an apartment near the zoo.

-          The CEO has written many letters to the investors.

# Past perfect tense: A past perfect tense verb refers to an action that was completed before another event in the past occurred. This tense is formed by adding had to the past participle of the main verb. The verbs in the past perfect tense are in italics in the following examples:

-          Mr. Subedi had served as the company spokesperson before his retirement.

-          She had looked at several apartments before deciding on the one near the beach.

-          The CEO had written many letters to the stockholders prior to the merger.

# Future perfect tense: A future perfect tense verb is used to express an action that will be completed before a stated time in the future. This tense is formed by adding shall have or will have to the past participle of the main verb. Examples of verbs in the future perfect tense are in italics in the following sentences:

- Mr. Subedi will have served as the company president for 15 years on January 1, 2001.

- She will have moved into our apartment before school starts.

- By the end of the quarter, the CEO will have written many letters to the investors.

 

Verb voice:

Voice is the term used to indicate whether the subject is doing or receiving the action. Sentence meaning and emphasis are communicated through the proper use of verb voice. The two voices of verbs are active and passive.

·         Active voice: When the subject of the sentence performs the action, the verb is in the active voice. In business communication the active voice usually is preferred because it is more direct and concise. Sentences that use verbs in the active voice identify the one performing the action. The following examples demonstrate how the verbs, shown in italics, are used in the active voice:

-          Upon returning form a business trip, Rohan completed his expense report.

-          Manish is applying for the sales manager’s position.

·         Passive voice: A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence receives the action. The passive voice is used sparingly in business communication. it is used when the subject is unknown or when the writer wants to soften the message to avoid making an accusation. Another use of the passive voice is to emphasize the action rather than the person who performed the action. The passive voice can also be used to eliminate a gender pronoun. It provides variety in sentence construction and keeps reader interest. Passive voice verbs require a form of be (am, is, are, was, were, been) as a helping verb, along with a past participle of the verb. Uses of verbs in the passive voice are shown in italics in the following examples:

-          Dipendra was notified of his eviction by a process server. (emphasis is on being notified rather than being evicted)

-          The list of applicants was reviewed by a hiring committee. (the main point is what was reviewed – the list of applicants- not by whom it was reviewed- a hiring committee.)

-          The books were audited before the merger. (A biased statement was avoided by not saying ‘He audited the books before the merger.’)

Changing the verb voice form active to passive does not change the verb tense from present to past. The tense in the passive voice is expressed by its auxiliary (helping) verb. The following examples show verbs (in italics) in the passive voice in several different tenses:

-          Training sessions are offered each Thursday and Friday. (passive voice, present tense)

-          The company offers training sessions each Thursday and Friday. (active voice, present tense)

-          Training sessions were offered last summer. (passive voice, past tense)

-          The company offered training sessions last summer. (active voice, past tense)

-          Training sessions will be offered during the morning in the spring. (passive voice, future tense)

-          The company will offer training sessions during the morning in the spring. (active voice, future tense)

 

Verb mood:

Communicators use verb mood to express facts, commands, or conditions. The three moods are indicative, imperative, and subjunctive.

·         Indicative mood: The indicative mood is used to make statements or to ask questions involving facts. Business writers use verbs in this mood more than in the imperative or subjunctive mood. Examples are in italics in these sentences:

-          The new version of Microsoft Windows will be available in February.

-          The company is expanding into the Northeast.

-          Are you going to the opening session?

·         Imperative mood: The imperative mood is used to give commands, give instructions, or make requests. Sentences in the imperative mood usually have you understood as the subject, and, therefore, it is omitted. Verbs used in the imperative mood are shown in italics in the following sentences:

-          Write this down before you forget it.

-          E-mail Krishna about the acquisition.

·         Subjunctive mood: The subjunctive mood can be used to express a wish, a doubt, or an unlikely condition. This mood is rarely used today. Here are some examples of subjunctive mood verbs.

-          If he were my teacher, I would follow his advice. (unlikely condition)

-          Should the meeting end by two, we will be able to see the first pitch thrown out. (doubt)

-          I wish it would stop shouting. (wish)

·         Conditional mood: Terms like could, might and would help to express this mood. Expressions indicate a possibility, if certain condition is met. I would attend the dinner party, if I had an invitation card with me. In practice, should is never used for conditional mood, but as a replacement for ought to.

 

Verbal:

A verbal is a verb form used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. Verbal cannot function as verb and do not express action or state of being. The three verbals are the infinitive, the gerund, and the participle.

·         Infinitive: The infinitive is formed by placing the word to in front of the present tense of the verb. Several examples are to rent, to judge, and to hire. An infinitive can function as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb, but it can never be used as a verb. The infinitive is in italics and its use is in parentheses in each of the following sentences.

-          To redesigned her kitchen is Shibani’s dream. (noun-subject)

-          Jagannath plans to travel to America this summer. (noun-direct object)

-          Kamana’s dream to retire early hinges on her investments. (adjective)

-          Badri has agreed to replace the defective recorder. (adverb)

·         Gerund: A gerund is a present tense verb form that can function only as a noun. It is formed by adding  -ing to a verb. Typing, creating, and manufacturing are examples of gerunds. Gerunds may be used in phrases consisting of a gerund, an object, and words modifying the object. In the following sentences the phrases are in italics, the gerunds are in bold, and their uses are in parentheses:

-          Designing brochures is the responsibility of the graphic arts department. (subject)

-          Joseph’s hobby is collecting stamps. (predicate nominative)

-          They enjoy camping in the bank of Saptakoshi river. (direct object)

-          Harish was awarded the prize for selling the most fitness club memberships. (object of preposition)

-          Milan, performing in the play, is the youngest member of the cast. (appositive)

·         Participle: A participle is a verb form that can be used as an adjective or as part of a verb phrase. The three types of participles are present, past, and perfect.

# Present participle: The present participle verb is always formed by adding -ing to the present tense of a verb. The participle phrase is in italics, and the present participle is in bold in each of the following examples:

-          All trainees planning to take an online training must register by 5^th February. (adjective)

-          Santosh is renting his apartment to a friend while he travels to the USA. (verb)

# Past participle: A past participle verb usually is formed by adding -d or ed to the present tense of a regular verb. Irregular verbs form their past participles by changing the spelling of their root words. The past participle is in italics in each of the following examples:

-          Last week Nina moved the display into the quick sale corridor. (verb-regular verb)

-          The gardener will be trimming the overgrown bushes in the front yard. (adjective-irregular verb)

# Perfect participle: A perfect participle verb is always used as an adjective and is formed by combining having with the past participle. The perfect participles are in italics in the following sentences:

-          Bidur, having displayed too much anger, quickly left the room.

-          Shyam, having experienced a tornado before, remained calm.

Nouns:

A noun names a person, place, or thing. The two main groups of nouns are proper nouns and common nouns.

Proper Nouns:

A proper noun names a particular person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are always capitalized. Kathmandu, Ratna Park, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Bardiya, and Gandaki are examples of proper nouns.

Common Nouns:

A common noun identifies a general class of persons, places, things, or ideas. Common nouns are not capitalized. Examples of common nouns are trainee, intern, house, computer, college, and river. The three classes of common nouns are concrete, abstract, and collective.

·         Concrete nouns: A concrete noun identifies those things that you can see, touch, hear, taste, or smell. Words such as instructor, mango, glass, pebble, castle, and bus are concrete nouns. Concrete nouns are precise and easily understood, which makes them effective for business communication.

·         Abstract nouns: An abstract noun identifies and idea, an emotion, a quality, or a belief. Examples of abstract nouns are prosperity, courage, affection, love, surprise, anger, and enthusiasm. People’s opinions and feelings differ in degree; therefore, abstract nouns are less precise than concrete nouns. Because abstract nouns are more difficult to understand than concrete nouns, they should be used occasionally in business.

·         Collective nouns: A collective noun is a group of persons of a collection of things. It is normally treated as a singular noun because the group is acting as one body; however, a collective noun would be treated as a plural noun if the group members were acting as individuals. Collective nouns include committee, faculty, department, listeners, team, and family.

Compound nouns:

A compound noun is two or more words used to identify one person, place, or thing. A compound noun may be written as one or more words, or it may be hyphenated. When in doubt, consult a dictionary for the correct spelling.

Compound nouns can be classified under any of the three classes of common nouns. Following are the examples:

·         Concrete: bulletin board, board member, mother-in-law

·         Abstract: self-esteem, common sense, well-being, life cycle

·         Collective: garden club, board of directors, administrative staff

Plural forms of nouns:

A plural noun is used to identify two or more persons, places, or things. The plural of most nouns is formed by adding -s or -es to the singular form of the noun. Because there are so many ways of forming plurals, consult a dictionary if a question arises. Examples of different ways that nouns are formed as plurals include computer, computers; wife, wives; territory, territories; monkey, monkeys; sister-in-law, sisters-in-law; sheep, sheep; and potato, potatoes.

Possessive forms of nouns:

A possessive noun is used to show possession or ownership. The possessive form of a noun is indicated by using an apostrophe. The following general guidelines will help you correctly form possessive nouns in written communication:

1.       The possessive of a singular noun not ending with an -s or a -z sound is formed by adding apostrophe and s.

Examples: principal’s desk, doctor’s chamber,

2.       The possessive of a singular noun ending with an -s or -z sound is formed by adding apostrophe -s to a noun with one syllable and by adding only an apostrophe to a noun with more than one syllable.

Examples: Basnets’ plane, Dickens’ novel

3.       The possessive of a plural noun ending with an -s or a -z sound is formed by adding an apostrophe.

Eg. teachers’ lockers, actors’ association

4.       The possessive of a compound noun is formed by placing the apostrophe or apostrophe -s after the final word or word element.

Eg. sergeant-at-arm’s itinerary, all general managers’ budgets

5.       When two or more people share ownership of an object or objects, add an apostrophe or apostrophe -s to the final name.

Eg. Sagar and Saugat’s horse, Tim and Stewartz’ investments

6.       When two or more people each own separate object, possession is indicated by adding an apostrophe or apostrophe -s to each noun.

Eg. Sagar’s and Saugat’s horses, Abhi’s and Akshat’s investments

Pronouns:

Pronouns are used in place of nouns. Pronouns make your writing more interesting because you do not repeat the noun. There are seven types of pronouns: personal, relative, interrogative, indefinite, demonstrative, reflexive, and intensive. Each type of pronoun performs a different function in a sentence.

 

Personal pronouns:

A personal pronoun is a substitute for a noun that refers to a specific person or thing. Personal pronouns change their form when they perform different functions and appear in different parts of a sentence. The different forms are called case forms. The three case forms for personal pronouns are the nominative, the possessive, and the objective.

·         Nominative case: The nominative case is used when the pronoun functions as the subject of a sentence or a clause. The nominative case is also called the subjective case. Singular personal pronouns in the nominative case are I, you, he, she, and it. Plural personal pronouns in the nominative case are we, you, and they. The nominative case is also used when the pronoun follows a linking verb. The italics in the following sentences illustrate the uses of nominative case pronouns.

-          I will not attend the annual sales review meeting. (subject of sentence)

-          When we close on the new office building, Shyam will announce the purchase to the public in a news conference. (subject of dependent clause)

-          It was they who surveyed the property. (it-subject of sentence; they-follows linking verb)

·         Possessive case: The possessive case is used when the pronoun shows possession or ownership. The possessive case does not need an apostrophe. Singular possessive pronouns are my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, and its. Plural possessive pronouns are our, ours, your, yours, their, and theirs. Several examples of pronouns in the possessive case are shown in italics in the following sentences:

-          Her scooter was involved in an accident. (shows whose scooter)

-          What are your plans for this Dashain? (shows whose plans)

-          If the report is not yours, it must be hers. (shows whose report)

-          Our examination schedule was changed because of the weather. (shows whose examination)

-          The company updated its websites. (shows whose website)

·         Objective case: The objective case is used when the pronoun functions as an object in a sentence, clause, or phrase. Singular pronouns in the objective case are me, you, him, her, and it. Plural objective pronouns are us, you, and them. The following sentences show in italics pronouns that are performing these functions.

-          Sushila directed me to my seat in the bus. (direct object of a sentence)

-          Tirtha threw the pass to him. (object of preposition)

-          When we met him, Bibek was working for our major competitor. (direct object of clause)

Relative pronouns:

A relative pronoun connects a group of words containing a subject and verb (a clause) to a noun or pronoun. The relative pronouns who, whom, whose, which, and that. If the word to which the pronoun refers is a person, use who, whom, or whose. Use who when the pronoun referring to a person is in the nominative case and whom when the pronoun is in the objective case. Use which or that if the pronoun refers to a thing. Relative pronouns are in italics in the following sentences:

-          The player who scores the most points will get the award.

-          Parijat doesn’t know whom her team leader has chosen to lead the task force.

-          In case of a disagreement, whose opinion will you believe?

-          The wall, which was recently painted, is beautiful.

Interrogative pronouns:

An interrogative pronoun is used within a question. The who, whose, which, and what are the interrogative pronouns. Pronouns precede verbs in questions. Like other pronouns within sentences, they function as subjects, objects, modifiers, and subject complements. The italics in the following sentences illustrate how interrogative pronouns are used:

-          Who cut Robert’s hair? (subject)

-          Whose purse was left in the conference room? (modifier)

-          Whom do you think the Cowboys will hire as placekicker? (object)

-          Which bookkeeper handled Anderson’s account? (modifier)

-          What was the reasoning for the reorganization of your department? (subject complement)

Indefinite pronouns:

An indefinite pronoun is used to make a general statement about individuals or things. Indefinite pronouns include each, anyone, one, several, both, many, everyone, and nobody. The indefinite pronouns are in italics in the following sentences:

-          Each project manager reports to the general manager.

-          Did anyone see the meteor shower last night?

-          One of the employees invests 10 percent of his paycheck in the stock market.

-          None of the documents was mailed in time to meet the deadline.

Demonstrative pronouns:

A demonstrative pronoun is used to indicate a specific person, place, or thing. The four demonstrative pronouns are this, these, that and those. Demonstrative pronouns are in italics in these sentences:

-          This budget will need to be revised to maintain a 15 percent reserve.

-          These tires will last much longer than the old ones.

-          Is that the best alternative to the problem?

-          Are those the students who won the scholarship?

Compound personal pronouns:

A compound personal pronoun has the suffix self or selves. A compound personal pronoun may be an intensive or a reflexive pronoun. Intensive pronouns are used for emphasis, whereas reflexive pronouns reflect the action of the verb to the subject or to a noun or pronoun in the sentence. Examples of intensive and reflexive pronouns, in italics, follow:

-          The CEO himself welcomed each person to the celebration. (intensive-emphasizes a noun)

-          Chetana will key the report herself. (intensive-emphasizes a noun)

-          The birds saw themselves reflected in the stream. (reflexive-refers to the subject, a noun)

Antecedent:

To be grammatically correct in your communication, you will want to know and use another form of agreement-the agreement of pronouns and their antecedents. Recall that pronouns are noun substitutes. An antecedent is a word, phrase, or clause that is replaced by the pronoun. Most antecedents are nouns. The pronouns used as subjects, objects, or complements are he, she, I, we, you, it, her, him, them, and they. As a possessive, a pronoun is used as a modifier. Examples of possessive pronouns are my, mine, our(s), your(s), his, her(s), its, and their(s). possessive pronouns do not use an apostrophe to show possession. Its used as a possessive pronoun should not be written as it’s, which is the contraction for it is.

Pronouns and their antecedents must agree in three ways: (a) in number, (b) in gender, and (c) in a clear relationship. In the following examples of agreement in number, the antecedent is in italics and the pronoun is in bold print:

·         Singular: If a worker continues to arrive late, he or she will be counseled.

·         Plural: Raman and Daman reported on Monday, and they said the report is complete.

Modifiers:

Modifiers include adjective, adverbs, participles, and interjections in sentences.

Adjectives:

An adjective provides additional information about a noun or a pronoun. Adjectives make the meaning of the noun or pronoun more exact by answering such questions as which one, how many, and what kind. Adjectives also are called modifiers.

Adjectives may be regular or irregular. Regular adjectives generally are one syllable words with -er or -est added when making comparisons. Irregular adjectives usually contain two or more syllables and use less, least, more, or most when making comparisons.

Degrees of comparison in adjectives:

Adjectives change form to show degrees of comparison. There are three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, and superlative.

·         Positive degree: The positive degree is used to describe one item or one group of items. The positive form is the form used in dictionary definitions. The adjective in the positive form is in italics in the following examples:

-          His smartphone has a large screen.

-          The production line at Goldstar is efficient.

-          The sports budget for this year is high.

·         Comparative degree: The comparative degree is used to show the difference between two items. The comparative degree is formed by adding -er to a regular adjective or by adding the words more or less to an irregular adjective. The adjectives used in the preceding examples in the positive degree are shown in the following examples in the comparative degree:

-          His smart phone has a larger screen than yours.

-          The production line at Goldstar is more efficient than another.

-          The sports budget for this year is higher than it was last year.

·         Superlative degree: The superlative degree is used to compare three or more items. It can also be used for emphasis. The superlative degree is formed by adding -est to a regular adjective or by adding most or least to an irregular adjective. The adjectives used in the previous examples are now shown in the superlative degree:

-          His computer has the largest screen available.

-          The production line at Goldstar is the most efficient I have seen.

-          The sports budget for this year is the highest it has been in the last five years.

Absolute adjectives:

An absolute adjective is always in the superlative degree. Therefore, it cannot be compared. For example, it the design of a new car is perfect, another car cannot have a more perfect design. Some absolute adjectives are complete, unique, right, final, full, square, round, correct, never, dead, and empty. Absolute adjectives, however, can be quantified by using the words more nearly and most nearly.

-          The assignment is complete.

-          Jeevan’s portfolio is more nearly complete. (not more complete)

-          Jeevan’s portfolio is the most nearly complete (not most complete) of any in our class.

Compound adjectives:

A compound adjective is two or more words used together to describe a single noun or pronoun. Often compound adjectives are hyphenated; sometimes they are not. When compound adjectives are shown hyphenated in the dictionary, they are considered permanent compounds and should always be hyphenated. Compound nouns used as adjectives and shown as open compounds in the dictionary are not hyphenated. Compound adjectives not shown in the dictionary are referred to as temporary compounds and are hyphenated when they appear before the noun or pronoun, they describe but are not hyphenated when they appear after the words they describe. Consult a dictionary for hyphenation of compound adjectives. Compound adjectives appear in italics in the following sentences:

-          Mohan is a well-respected attorney. (permanent compound adjective)

-          Santosh opened a mobile wallet account after he was promoted. (opened compound adjective)

-          Fax machines that operate at a high speed are a necessity in business today. (temporary compound adjective used after the noun)

Adverbs:

Adverbs are modifiers that restrict, limit, or describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They answer questions such as how, when, where, why, in what manner, or to what degree. Many end in -ly. Examples of adverbs used as modifiers are shown in italics in the following sentences:

-          The quality of service dropped drastically during the month of November. (dropped how?)

-          Annual general meeting is held annually. (conducted when?)

-          Training for executives traveling to our Indian location will be held here next week. (held where?)

-          The value of antique sculptures is increasing extremely fast. (increasing how? Fast; to what degree? Extremely)

Placement of adverbs:

An adverb may be a single word (speak clearly), a phrase (speak in a clear manner), or a clause (speak as clearly as you can). A single-word adverb can be placed before or after the word it modifies. Prepositional and infinitive phrases and clauses that function as adverbs usually follow the word they modify. An adverbial clause, which is a dependent clause that acts as an adverb, precedes the independent clause in a sentence.

Degrees of adverbs:

Some words that are used as adverbs as well as adjectives have positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of comparison.

Participles:

A participle is a form of verb. It can function as an adjective, modifying nouns or pronouns. Present participles end in -ing. The laughing man wore a tie. Past participles end in -ed, -en, -d, -t, -n, or -ne as in the words asked, eaten, saved, dealt, seen, and gone. Frightened, he left the scene of accident at Putalisadak. Reaching his home, he took a long nap. The confusion can occur with a wrong placement, for example, walking down the street, her kurta fluttered (sounds like her kurta was walking down the street!)

Interjections:

An interjection expresses strong emotion or feeling. It is not related grammatically to any other word in a sentence. Most interjections do not have any meaning if they are taken out of the message context. An interjection is normally punctuated with an exclamation point. Interjections are seldom used in business writing, but they may be used in oral communication and in written advertising material. The interjections are in italics in the following examples:

-          No! That is not the way.

-          Wow! Those building are beautiful.

-          Stop! You can’t go ahead.

A sentence is a group of related words that have a subject and a predicate and express a complete thought. A sentence is the basic unit for organizing messages. You can improve your ability to communicate by becoming familiar with sentence construction and learning how to organize sentence components. Construction of grammatically correct sentences improve your message clarity, expresses your meaning precisely, and increases your message credibility.

 Connecting words:

Prepositions, conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs and relative pronouns help to connect part of a sentence.

Prepositions:

Prepositions are used to:

·         Denote a point in time with on, at, in (I will go on Monday. I take a walk in the morning. The class starts at 9:30 am)

·         Refer to extended time with since, for, from and to, from and until, during, within (I have been working since last week. I am going to Ilam for a month. The training took place from January to March. We traveled from April until December. We celebrate Dashain in October. I must finish writing this proposal within a month.)

·         Indicate a place, with in, inside, on, at, over, above (I see a mouse in the room. He stayed inside his office. Please, leave the document on the table. The sales representative met me at the corner of Putalisadak.). Other space references include: places higher than a point (over, above), lower than a point (under, underneath, beneath, below), and close to a point (nearby, next to, between, among, opposite)

·         Introduce objects of verbs such as bark, glace, laugh, look, rejoice, and smile (The dog barked at me. He looked at me. I rejoiced at his successful results.)

·         Refer to other meanings, such as of or about. (My manager approved of my plan. The report consists of 200 pages. She is thinking of her co-workers. He dreams of building an excellent company. Investors are thinking about putting their money in the real estate sector.), or for (She is looking for her purse. I wished for his business success. We called for a financial consultant.)

Conjunctions:

A conjunction is used to join words, phrases and clauses. Conjunctions are also to introduce clauses. Conjunctions are similar to prepositions in that they serve as connectors but are different in that they do not have objects. Conjunctions are classified as coordinate conjunctions, correlative conjunctions, and subordinate conjunctions. Coordinate and correlative conjunctions join grammatically equal word elements; subordinate conjunction join grammatically unequal word elements.

Coordinate conjunctions:

A coordinate conjunction joins words, phrases, and independent clauses that are of equal importance or rank. Of equal importance or rank means that similar elements are connected; for example, adjectives are connected to adjectives and nouns are connected to nouns. Coordinate conjunctions include and, but, or, nor, for, as, and yet. The following examples show coordinate conjunctions (in italics) joining words, phrases, and independent clauses:

-          Both supervisors and cashiers attended the seminar. (joins nouns)

-          The assistant worked quietly and efficiently. (joins adverbs)

-          The young man ran to the park and jumped over the fence to rescue his friend. (joins verbs)

-          They walked up one side and down the other. (joins prepositional phrases)

-          You have been preapproved for a 5 million loan, but this preapproval will expire on July 15. (joins independent clauses)

Correlative conjunctions:

A correlative conjunction is paired with another correlative conjunction to connect two parallel words, phrases, or clauses. The most common correlative conjunction pairs are both… and, either …or, neither… nor, not… but, not only… but also, and whether… or. Examples, shown in italics, follow:

-          Rajesh not only earned a letter in baseball but also graduated with honors. (connects verb phrases)

-          You may have either a salad or a cup of soup with your main course. (connects nouns)

-          Karishma informed her mother that she would either wash the car or mow the yard. (connects clauses)

A common difficulty with using correlative conjunctions involves parallelism. Be sure that connected elements are equal in rank or parallel in grammatical form. The following sentences demonstrate a few parallelism errors. The correlative conjunctions are in italics.

-          At 11 o’clock, Ramesh will either go to class or he will eat lunch. (incorrect- either precedes the verb go, but or precedes the pronoun he.)

-          At 11 o’clock, Ramesh will either go to class or eat lunch. (correct- both conjunctions precede verbs.)

-          Reshma not only cleaned the house but also the garage. (incorrect- not only precedes the verb cleaned and but also precedes the noun garage.)

-          Reshma cleaned not only the house but also the garage. (correct- both conjunctions precede nouns.)

Subordinate conjunctions:

A subordinate conjunction joins a subordinate (dependent) clause to the main clause-that is, a dependent clause to an independent clause. Some subordinate conjunctions are after, although, because, before, since, when, while, where, if, whether, though, and until. The subordinate conjunctions are in italics and the main clauses are bold in the following examples:

-          Before you submit your report, check to see that all documentation is included.

-          Julia was promoted to vice president because she was the most qualified.

-          The sales projections were adjusted after the sales territories were redrawn.

Common Transitions in Business Writing
Relationship	Transition words/pharses
Similarity	Similarly, equally, likewise, in the same way, comparatively
Emphasis	Even, indeed, in fact, above all, even more, to clarify, notably
Contrast	But, however, in contrast, on the contrary, conversely
Example	For example, for instance, to illustrate, namely, specifically
Cause and effect	Accordingly, consequently, hence, for this reason, thus, in that case
Additional support	Additionally, besides, equally important, in addition, moreover
Reference	Considering (this), concerning (this), as for (this), on the subject of (this)
Continuation	Subsequently, eventually, previously, after (this)

 

Conjunctive adverbs:

Conjunctive adverbs help to join two clauses. They serve as transition words. If used at the beginning of sentence, a conjunctive adverb is followed by a comma; and if used at the end of the first independent clause, it is preceded by a semicolon or period, and followed by a comma. I must reach office today; otherwise, I will miss our annual meeting. Finally, the work is finished. Ila did not know how to drive the scooter. Hence, she consulted her user manual. Examples of conjunctive adverbs: Accordingly, additionally, also, anyhow, at the same time, besides, comparatively, consequently, conversely, first, second, for example, for this reason, finally, further, furthermore, elsewhere, equally, hence, henceforth, however, in addition, indeed, instead, in the first place, in comparison, in contrast, likewise, meanwhile, moreover, most important, namely, nevertheless, next, nonetheless, now, on the contrary, on the other hand, otherwise, rather, similarly, so, still, subsequently, then, thereafter, therefore, and thus.

Relative pronouns:

Words like who, whom, whose (for a person or an animal with a name), which, that, and what (for a collective noun, thing, animal without a name) are used as relative pronouns. They help to introduce dependent clauses connected closely with the relative pronoun’s antecedent. Examples: Salt Trading Corporation Ltd. a company that (not who) was established about 48 years ago. The man who (not that or which) was sitting next to me was Prabal Gurung. Confusion can occur in the use of that and which. Use that if the clause that follows it essential to the meaning of the sentence (The Himalayas are the mountains that attract a lot of tourists) and use which, set off by commas, if the clause that follows it is non-essential (The Himalayas, which stand to the north of our country, attract a lot of tourists)

Sentences:

A sentence expresses a statement, a command, a question, a wish, or an exclamation. The starting point in understanding how to structure sentences is to know their two essential parts: the subject and the predicate.

 

Elements:

The subject:

The subject is the part of a sentence that tells who or what is being discussed. There are three types of subjects: complete, simple and compound.

·         The complete subject: The complete subject includes all words related directly to the subject. The complete subject is in bold in the following examples:

-          Bina dances.

-          Bina, and eight-year-old girl, reads so brilliantly.

-          The finance department completed the inventory of computers.

·         The simple subject: The simple subject of a sentence is the main noun or pronoun in the complete subject. The simple subject names who or what is performing the action, receiving the action, or existing in the state of being described in the sentence. The following examples show the simple subject in bold print and the complete subject in italics:

-          The beautiful vase fell from the table. (The vase names what fell)

-          The rose garden was planted by the local garden club. (The garden names what received the action of planting)

-          The new college building appeared to be drastically different from the old one. (Building names what appeared different)

·         The compound subject: Two (or more) simple subjects connected by a coordinate conjunction form a compound subject. Coordinating conjunctions join equal or like ideas within a sentence; examples include and, or, but, nor, for, yet, and so. The following sentences have the compound subject in bold print and the complete subject in italics. The coordinating conjunction is underlined.

-          The doctor and her staff work to keep health care costs down.

-          The head teacher and teachers are discussing to maintain the discipline in the school.

The predicate:

The predicate is the part of a sentence that tells something about the complete subject. The predicate consists of a verb with or without phrases or words that modify the verb, serve as its object, or complement the verb. The predicate may be complete, simple, or compound.

·         The complete predicate: The complete predicate includes the verb and all the words directly related to it, including modifiers and objects. The following examples show the complete predicate italicized.

-          Dogs eat slowly.

-          Cricket and football ticket prices are increasing.

-          The document was sent by overnight express.

-          Namita quickly competed her first assignment in her new job at the foreign ministry.

·         The simple predicate: The simple predicate is the main verb in the complete predicate. The verb expresses action or a state of being. The simple predicate is in bold print in these examples of italicized complete predicates:

-          The team left quickly. (Left expresses action)

-          The package was sent by overnight express. (Was sent states the action)

-          The office and distribution center moved last week to another part of the town. (Moved expresses action)

·         The compound predicate:  A compound predicate is formed when two (or more) simple predicates are connected by a coordinating conjunction. The compound predicate is in bold print in these examples of italicized complete predicates. The coordinating conjunction is underlined.

-          Kumar sails weekly and races monthly.

-          The school roommates ate dinner and went to a movie.

-          Madan rode the bus or walked to school each day.

-          Gorkha earthquake destroyed or left uninhabitable 90 percent of the houses in Barpark.

Subject and predicate identification:

Practice recognizing subjects and predicates to improve your understanding of sentence structure. Analyzing sentence structure is easier if you start by locating the simple predicate (the verb); then ask who or what to identify the subject.

Objects and subject complements:

Objects and subject complements are important parts of sentences. They help to complete the thought expressed by the subject and the simple predicate. Understanding the functions of objects and subject complements will assist you in avoiding grammatical errors.

·         Objects: An object is a noun or pronoun acted upon by another part of speech such as a verb or a preposition. Objects may be direct or indirect. A direct object receives the action of the verb and helps complete the thought of the sentence. The direct object answers the what or whom question raised by the subject and verb.

-          Keshab teaches the piano. (Keshab teaches what?)

-          Sandesh is ill. (only action verbs can take direct objects; is a linking verb, links the subject with a word that describes Sandesh, the subject. A modifier coming after a linking verb (also called a state-of-being verb) is known as a subject complement.)

-          The recommendation assisted Dipesh. (The recommendation assisted whom?)

An indirect object receives the action that the verb makes on the direct object. The indirect object usually answers the question, “To whom or what is the action being directed?” Indirect objects are located between the verb and the direct object. You cannot have an indirect object if you do not have a direct object. Neither the direct object nor the indirect object ever appears as a prepositional phrase. You can locate the indirect object by inverting the sentence and mentally inserting the word to. In the following two sentences, the indirect object is in bold print and the direct object is in italics:

-          Arjun gave James the photograph. (The photograph was given to James)

-          The realtor sold the new faculty member a condominium. (A condominium was sold to the member. The words new faculty are modifiers for the noun object member.)

·         Subject complements: The subject complement is (a) a noun or pronoun that requires the subject or (b) an adjective that modifies (describes) the subject. In both cases, the subject complement follows a linking verb in the sentence. A linking verb (such as is, was, has been, am, are, and seem) does not show action. In each of the following examples, the subject and subject complement are in bold, and the linking verb is in italics:

-          Prem and Laxman are good friends. (friends is a noun that renames Prem and Laxman. The complete subject complement is good friends; good is an adjective modifying friend.)

-          The dog was lazy. (Lazy is an adjective that describes dog.)

Varities:

To construct correct sentences, you should know the four basic sentence structures. The technical names of these sentence structures are simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence. Sentence structures are classified by the number and kinds of clauses they have.

Varying sentence structure helps to make your messages interesting. You can also use sentence structure to emphasize and idea by placing it in an independent clause or de-emphasize it by placing it in a dependent clause. The effective communicator understands and uses all four sentence structures.

·         A simple sentence has one main clause (a single subject and a single predicate), although it may be expanded by nouns and pronouns that serve as objects of the action and by modifying phrases.

·         A compound sentence has two main clauses that express two or more independent but related thoughts of equal importance, usually joined by and, or, but. In effect, a compound sentence is a merger of two or more simple sentences (independent clauses) that are related. The independent clauses in a compound sentence are always separated by a comma or by a semicolon (in which case the conjunction-and, but, or-is dropped).

·         A complex sentence expresses one main thought (the independent clause) and one or more subordinate, related thoughts (dependent clauses that cannot stand alone as valid sentences)

·         A compound-complex sentence has two main clauses, at least one of which contains a subordinate clause.

Types of sentence
Simple	The marketing manager wrote the memo.
Compound	Raj chaired the meeting, and he did a good job in facilitating the discussion
Complex	While everyone is persuasive in our office, Sageeta, in particular, is a genius
Compound-complex	The CEO was sitting by his desk, and his secretary was smiling at him when I entered his office.

 

Types:

Sentences can serve one of four basic functions. There are four types of English sentence, classified by their purpose. They are:

·         Declarative sentence (statement): Declarative sentences make a statement. They tell us something. They give us information, and they normally end with a full-stop/period. Declarative sentences can be positive or negative. The usual word for the declarative sentence is: sub+verb…

·         Interrogative sentence (question): Interrogative sentences as a question. They ask us something. They want information, and they always end with a question mark. Interrogative sentences can be positive or negative. The usual word order for the interrogative sentence is: wh-word+auxiliary+sub+verb…

·         Imperative sentence (command): Imperative sentences give a command. They tell us to do something, and they end with a full-stop/period or exclamation mark/point(!). The usual word order for the imperative sentence is: base verb… (Note: there is usually no subject- because the subject is understood, it is YOU. Imperative sentence can be positive or negative)

·         Exclamative sentence (exclamation): Exclamative sentence expresses strong emotion/surprise-an exclamation-and they always end with an exclamation mark/point (!). The usual word order for the exclamative sentence is: what(adjective)+noun+subject+verb/ how(adjective/adverb)+subject+verb

Sentence patterns:

A helpful approach to understanding sentence construction is to examine common basic sentence patterns. The most common sentence pattern that writers use is subject-verb-object (SVO). There are seven basic sentence (clause) patterns:

·         SV= Shyam writes

·         SVO= Ram respects Sita.

·         SVC= Rajesh is tall.

·         SVOO= Radha offered Shraddha a khada.

·         SVOC= Dipendramede Bikash angry.

·         SVA= Goats live here.

·         SVOA= Manju put the ink-pot down.

There are many ways to rewrite each of the sentences. Although the English language is extremely flexible, the following patterns are the most frequently used:

#Subject-verb

Sujan reads.

#Subject-verb-direct object

Sujan reads a novel.

#subject-verb-indirect object-direct object

Sujan reads Kamala a novel.

Subject-linking verb-subject complement

Sujan is lost.

# Here ( or there)-linking verb-subject

Here is your backpack.

Faults:

Dangling modifiers and double negatives are common sentence faults you want to avoid. Good writers also avoid split infinitives.

Dangling modifiers:

A dangling modifier in a sentence means that the relationship is not clear between a phrase and the word or words that it modifies. The modifying phrase is dangling if it is too far removed from the word it modifies. For clarity in your messages, avoid dangling modifiers.

Incorrect: Halting loudly, John shut off the motor of his car. (who or what is halting)

Correct: John shut off his car motor that was idling loudly. (placing the dangling modifier closer to motor than John clarifies its relationship to the word modified)

Incorrect: While participating as a cheerleader for Northwood High, my teacher gave me a new cheer. (who was participating as a cheerleader?)

Correct: While participating as a cheerleader for Northwood High, I was given a new cheer by my teacher. (modifier: While participating as a cheerleader for Northwood High now clearly modifies the subject, I, in the rephrased sentence. The sentence could also be corrected by changing the introduction phrase to an introductory clause: While I was participating as a cheerleader for Northwood High, my teacher gave me a new cheer)

Double negatives:

A double negative is formed when a negative adverb (such as no, not, hardly, barely, or scarcely) is used in the same sentence with a negative verb (cannot, could not, won’t, didn’t, or other verbs plus not). Such constructions are illogical because their use actually forms a positive. Double negatives are grammatically unacceptable. In the following examples the negative adverbs are in bold print and the negative verbs are in italics.

Incorrect: I couldn’t hardly understand what she said. (The negative verb couldn’t and the negative adverb hardly are used in the same sentence.)

Correct: I could hardly understand what she said. (The negative verb has been removed from the sentence.)

Incorrect: Finishing this course won’t do no good for your grade point average. (The negative verb won’t and the negative adverb no are used in the same sentence.)

Correct: Finishing this course will do no good for your grade point average. (The negative verb ‘won’t’has been changed to the positive verb will.)

Split infinitives:

An infinitive is formed by placing the word to before a present tense verb (examples: to accept, to agree, and to feel). A split infinitive is formed when an adverb or other words are placed between the to and the verb (to bravely accept, to barely agree, to warmly feel). Split infinitives are not correct grammar. Avoid them when possible. In the following examples, the adverbs or other words that split the infinitives are in italics:

Incorrect: The Human Resource Department selected Pamela to officially represent her department at the company’s annual conference. (The infinitive to represent has been split by the adverb officially.)

Correct: The Human Resource Department officially selected Pamela to represent her department at the company’s annual conference. (The adverb officially was moved closer to the word modified: selected)

Incorrect: Tina received an assignment to as quickly as possible design a presentation for ABC. (Several words, as quickly as possible, split the infinitive to design)

Correct: Tina received an assignment to design a presentation for ABC as quickly as possible. (The words as quickly as possible have been moved to the end of the sentence so they do not split the infinitive.)

Some split infinitives seem to sound better than technically correct versions do. Usually, you can reword the sentence to avoid the problem, as seen in the following examples:

Technically correct: He decided to change gradually the procedures. (The wording to change gradually is awkward.)

Revision: He decided to change the procedures gradually. (This revision also avoids the problem of a split infinitive.)

Phrases, Clauses, and Fragments:

Being able to identify groupings of words-referred to as phrases or clauses-is important for understanding sentence structure. Also, you should be able to recognize sentence fragments and make conscious decisions about their use.

Phrases:

A phrase is a group of related words functioning as a part of speech. Phrases do not contain both a subject and verb; phrases may contain one or the other or neither. Here are examples of phrases:

·         Verb phrases: Verb(s) with related, connecting words: will be mailing; may not fly; is considered; have been waiting; rested briefly and waited quietly

·         Noun phrases: Noun(s) with related, connected words: my home address; the fall semester; the lovely summer wedding; mother’s flower garden; three men and five women

·         Propositional phrases: Preposition with related, connected words: to college; before the concert; under the table; for a good reason; between the first and second years

·         Adjective phrases: Adjective(s) with related, connected words: pretty and smart; 15 years of age; three dozen; soothing or calming

·         Participle phrases: Present or past tense verb form(s) including related, connected words and serving as an adjective or adverb: having been promoted; seeing clearly; keying rapidly, waiting anxiously

·         Infinitive phrases: Infinitive(s) (to plus a verb form) with related, connected words: to play; to promote; to interact; to collaborate; to speak eloquently

·         Gerund phrases: Gerund (a verb plus -ing ending) including related, connected words and serving as a noun: your willingness to help; your accepting our offer, reading the daily newspaper; adding to the issue

Using phrases as parts of speech-as adjectives, adverbs, and nouns- can make your writing more interesting. Phrases add variety and color. They can add strong words to your sentences and bring power to your writing. Finally, they can strengthen your writing by providing specific details and showing relationship.

Clauses:

A clause is a group of related words including both a subject and a predicate. There are two kinds of clauses: independent and dependent. An independent clause, sometimes referred to as the main clause, expresses a complete thought. It can stand alone as a separate sentence. In the following examples of independent clauses, the simple predicates are shown in italics print, and the simple subjects are in bold:

-          Devendra listens daily to music on his iPad.

-          The business administration program averages 150 graduates yearly.

A dependent clause, also called a subordinate clause, does not express a complete thought; therefore; it cannot stand alone as a sentence. The dependent clause contains both a subject and a predicate but, because of its construction, depends upon another clause to complete the thought.

Most dependent clauses are introduced by a subordinate conjunction (such as because, as, if, since, while, or when) or by a relative pronoun (such as who, which, or that). Look at the subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun (shown in bold), the simple subject (in bold italics), and the simple predicate (in regular italics) in these examples of dependent clauses:

-          if the order arrived on Monday

-          that the product meets expectations.

The basic difference between dependent and independent clauses is the use of subordinate conjunction or relative pronoun at the beginning of the clause. Adding a subordinate conjunction to the beginning of an independent clause would make it a dependent clause. On the other hand, if you were to omit the subordinate conjunction or relative pronoun at the beginning of the previous illustrations of dependent clauses, those clauses would become independent clauses:

-          The order arrived on Wednesday.

-          The product meets requirements.

Subordinate conjunctions and relative pronouns should be selected carefully; interchanging them reduces the precision of your message. Two commonly interchanged relative pronouns are that and which. Use that for clauses essential to the meaning of the sentence and which for clauses adding information that would not change the sentence meaning if omitted.

Sentence fragments:

A sentence fragment is a group of words that may or may not have meaning. Sentence fragment is another name for an incomplete sentence. Note the following examples:

-          If the vacation is taken early (lacks meaning)

-          Niharika having been promoted (lacks meaning)

-          Best wishes for success (has meaning in context)

Although some sentence fragment that represent a complete thought may be used in informal business communication, the acceptability of their usage for formal writing is questionable. In letters, for example, writers may choose meaningful sentence fragments- such as If only I had known! or And now to move on- to give life and personality to their messages. Congratulations! And Yes! are used often, also. Other writers do not use sentence fragments. For the most part, you will want to use only complete sentences: independent clauses that have a subject and verb and express a complete thought.

Typical errors in sentence construction reflect in fragments (sentence without subject or verb, or only a dependent clause), missing commas or inappropriate use of commas, and lack of parallelism (similar ideas not expressed in a similar way), etc.

 

Subject-Verb Agreement:

In grammatically correct sentences, your subjects and verb should always agree. Errors usually occur with conjunctions, numbers, pronouns, and sentence order.

·         Conjunctions: Srijana and Karuna are coming to the show. Not only David but also Sumeet have won scholarships. Exceptions: Dahi and chiura is popular among Nepalis. Ajay or Anuska is going to finish that work.

·         Numbers: collective nouns, such as class, team, family, jury, and committee are usually singular. The class was small (used as a singular). The class were not all present (in a plural sense). Ten rupees is not much to buy grocery (used as a single amount). Rupees are used in Nepal and India. Things with two parts, such as scissors, tweezers, trousers, and shears have plural verbs. These scissors are sharp.

·         Pronouns: indefinite pronouns like both, few, many, others, and several are plural. Another, anyone, anything, each one, either, everyone, little, more than one, much, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, other, somebody, someone, and something are singular. All, any, each, more, most, none, plenty, some, and such can be singular or plural depending on the context. All are happy. All is not lost.

·         Intervening positions: in a compound subject containing both a singular and plural noun joined by a conjunction, the verb always agrees with part of the subject that is nearer the verb. The student or his classmates always arrive on time. His classmates or the boy always arrives on time. Similarly, the verb always agrees with the subject, not a phrase that follows it. One of the participants has finished his draft work. The people who go on a world bicycle tour are daring. Sanjay, as well as his wife, is happy. The man with all the cats takes a nap. The house, including all its rooms, is airy.

·         Order: sometimes a subject follows the verb in a sentence: Here comes our uncle. There are the people with yellow T-Shirts.

Writing Mechanics

Punctuation:

Punctuation marks are indications that help us to navigate the written words. They are used to alert us about transitions, pauses and stops. They help us to follow the thoughts through sentences and paragraphs, and make our communication effective. The following are the common punctuations in English.

                Apostrophe:

·         In possessives of nouns: Rahul’s pen, the employees’ quarters etc.

·         In contractions: can’t, won’t

·         In plurals: the 90s, the 80s

Commas:

·         Adjacent to quotation marks: He said, “I have an English book.” They said, “You are handsome.”

·         To set apart appositives: Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, is located in Province no. 3.

·         In a list, except the last item: Jane, John, and Mark went to the cinema.

·         After introductory words or phrases: First of all, I want to thank you. At first, we visit zoo.

·         In dates: They finished the work on November20, 2015. He was born in October3, 2001.

·         Between geographical places: She is from Dhangadi, Sudurpaschim.

·         After salutations or closings in letters: Dear sir/madam, sincerely yours, etc.

·         After proper nouns in imperative sentences: Boys and girls, show me your home works. Suruchi, bring me a glass of water.

·         Before conjunctions in independent clauses: Before you go to bed, switch off the lights. When you pass the exam, I will buy you a bike.

Exclamation marks:

·         For surprise, excitement, or strong emotions: What a beautiful! That’s awesome! OMG! Etc.

Question mark:

·         To ask a question: Where are you from? What do you want to have in breakfast?

·         To reconfirm something: So, you are going to visit Lumbini? It means, you are not coming with us?

Quotation marks:

·         Before and after the quoted materials: She said, “I am fine.” They said, “We are developing a new chip.”

·         Before and after book chapters, document titles, magazine articles, poems, short story titles, songs etc.: I have read the poem “Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. She likes to listen to “Timikaskohunehola” by Sworup Raj Acharya and Anjana Gurung.

Colons:

·         With lists: The following: roads, electricity, and communication.

·         In ratios: 4:1, 9:20 am.

Semicolons:

·         To connect independent clauses: She entered into the office; Rohit followed her. They stopped; we started.

Underlining:

We can have underline to the titles or longer works like albums, books, documentaries etc.

Dash:

·         Em dash (the longer one): To separate a phrase, an interpolation, or a series of examples within a text. For example: All the boys of our class--Bijay, Ajay, Nabin, Ramesh, Sajan and Sujan—are ready to play volleyball.

·         En dash (the shorter one): To indicate ranges: See Pages 50-60

·         To indicate negative numbers: -5 degrees celcius

Ellipses:

·         To indicate a quote from a part of a continuing text (avoid if you can): The Study suggests “… spending more on advertisement doesn’t necessarily increase sales. In fact, it may put off customers and affect sales negatively…”

·         To indicate a pause (in creative writing): Now there is peace… And there is light… Soon the night falls again…

·         To show hesitation: I was … well, what do I say… very irritated … to say the least.

Hyphens:

·         In two-word adjectives before a noun: a one-way ticket, red-faced boy, a well-known player.

·         With compound numbers: thirty-one, ninety-seven

·         With prefixes: all-mighty, ex-boyfriend, self-centered

·         With the suffixes: bull-like, president-elect, chairman-designate

·         Between a prefix and a capitalized word: mid-October, mid-1990s, pre-modern, anti-tobbaco

Italics:

Use for emphasis, to separate headings, titles etc.

Parentheses:

·         Use parentheses to explain or define: He wears a dhaka-topi (a typical Nepali hat).

Period:

·         To end a sentence: My friends are always helpful.

·         To separate a file name from a file extension: notes.docx, list.xls etc.

·         For abbreviations: a.m., p.m., Mt., k.m. etc.

Semi-colon:

·         To connect two independent sentences: Mr. Hari Bahadur, the president of our institute, is expanding his business; he is opening a new branch in different cities.

·         To separate items in a list: Our company opened two branches in Nepalgunj; three in Biratnagar; and four in Butwal.

Slashes:

·         For fractions: 1/3, ¾

·         To separate lines of a poem in a running text: Roaming and wandering all day, / like a stray dog.

Abbreviations:

·         In titles: Mr., Mrs., PHD., Jr. etc.

·         In acronyms for names of institutions: Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Department of Education (DoE) etc.

Capitalization:

·         In the first word of a sentence: He got a new credit card.

·         The pronoun “I”: I worked all day without a break.

·         Proper nouns: Anil, Bansgadhi, Mount Everest etc.

·         Holidays, dates, groups, organizations: On October 22, the Young Entrepreneurs of Nepal (YEN) will organize a party.

·         Languages and people: The Indians are making strides in information technology. Some schools in Kathmandu have started teaching Japanese language.

·         Historical periods: The Malla Era produced many beautiful monuments.

·         Title before names (but not after): Education Minister Giriraj Mani Pokhrel inaugurates a new technical institute in Bhaktapur.

·         The days of the week, the months of the year, and holidays: Friday, March, Women’s Day etc.

·         For abbreviations or acronyms: UNO, UNICEF, UNESCO etc.

·         The first word in a sentence that is a direct quote: The GM says, “We are making profits from this newly launched product.”

·         The key words in the titles of works, but not “the,” “a,” or “an,” except to start: End of the World.

 

 

 

Fundamentals of Language

Language is an oral, written or non-verbal system of communication used by a particular community or group. The voice sounds, written symbols and gestures are arbitrary, but they convey meaning shared by a community using that language. So that, language is an important vehicle of communication. But if the language is not used properly due to the barrier like inadequate use of language, such as incorrect grammar, syntax, overuse of technical/obscure words, or ambiguity, it wouldn’t give clear and effective communication.

 

According to Ethnologue, a catalogue of languages, there are today over 7000 living languages around the world. Each language has its own systems of codes. To be able to communicate effectively in one of these languages, one must know the basic rules and standards guiding the language, its nature or functions. Briefly, the following are some fundamental issues that apply to any language:

 

Language and Meaning:

 

Language is symbolic. It communicates through symbols. A symbol is something that represents something else. For example, if you say namaste, this sound is the verbal symbol for a particular idea (greeting someone). If you write you down N-A-M-A-S-T-E, these letters combine to form a symbol that stands for the idea of greeting. Similarly, if you fold your hands to someone, the gesture symbolizes the idea of greeting. However, these symbols are not exactly the things they refer to; they are used only to represent them for our communication convenience.

 

So that, the relation between a symbol (the sound namaste or pigeon), the idea of greeting, or peace or love (in our mind) and the referent (the actual greeting or pigeon) is indirect. This is why many words can be confusing and we often have to rely on dictionaries or thesauruses. Denotation is the literal or primary meaning of a word, as we find in a dictionary. Mono-semic words, or words that have only one use in language, are easier to denote. Connotation is an idea or feeling that a word invokes for us. It includes literal or primary meaning, but in addition to that, it is also the meaning based on how we associate with a word at the personal level with our emotions or experiences. For example, the letters T-H-A-R-U denote a member of an ethnic community. For some, it could connate a husband; or for others it could stand a farmer.

 

Language, Society and Culture:

 

Our society and culture influence the way we use language. In turn, we also influence society and culture in using language, in the way we socialize. We follow social rules or norms in conversations. These are our shared values internalized over the years. For example, we are expected to introduce to a stranger before we begin conversation with him or her.

 

We follow certain culturally accepted norms on how we start and end our conversations or how we change topics. We carry out conversations in a logical sequence of sentences, in asking questions and giving answers. Most such sequences are highly scripted and ritualized. For example, conversations begin with greetings, and then move to contemporary topics like weather, recent public interest topics or current affairs, and then to a subject-specific topic. Questions follow answers, and the speaker is acknowledged. We seek permission to change a topic, apologize for interruption, and thank our listeners or other participants at the end of the conversation. We also change the way we use language as we shift to professional, business, personal or academic contexts.

 

People using the same language may reflect different cultural traits, depending on the region they live or their own personal experiences. We acquire knowledge from our culture directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly. The language we use shapes our realities. If the language is inadequate to express some realities, we may not be able to talk about our experience accurately. For example, the English word ‘cousin’ does not help distinguish between the child of a maternal and a paternal uncle. Similarly, no exact word is available in Nepali for ‘swimming pool’ although Nepali may have words equivalent to ‘pond’ or ‘lake’. Sometimes the situation gets awkward and evendisconcerting when words from another language are used.

 

Difference in dialects and accents also influence the way language users or speakers are perceived by other people. People with different dialects use different versions of languages that have distinct words, grammar, and pronunciation. Accents reflect in distinct styles of pronunciation. For example, the Nepali language used in Kathmandu is different in dialect and accent from the Nepali language used in many rural areas. Dialects and accents can vary by region, class, and ethnicities.

 

Sometimes people try to accommodate with other languages by switching to communication style of another language. A native Nepali trying to communicate with an English-speaker may adopt the ways of the English speaker. Globalization and outsourcing have made code-switching the way of speakers try to speak other languages as native speakers. For example, the Indian call-center workers try to speak English as the native speakers to the customers from the English-speaking countries.

 

Stylistic Features:

Stylistically, language can be formal or informal. Formal and informal languages choose words and put them together in their own distinct ways. Formal language is less personal than informal language. Communication that is done for professional or academic purposes is usually. It uses an impersonal voice, avoids slangs or contractions, is very precise in words, and highly sensitive to rules of grammar and sentence structures. Informal language is more spontaneous and laid-back or casual. It uses slangs, contractions and is less rigid about grammar and style issues. It is conversational, personal in tone, and is often used to communicate with friends or family, either in oral communication or in personal emails, text messages, or in some business correspondences. It is generally believed that oral communication is more informal than formal but if you are writing a letter or a memo to a friend can be informal while a speech in a program given by an executive or a government official can be formal.

 

The characteristic features of formal language are as follow:

 

1.       Absence of first-person pronouns such as I and We:

The communicator avoids these to keep himself or herself outside the text, directly or indirectly, to project objectivity, and an impersonal voice. Often, in universities, students are asked to adopt this approach in writing papers.

2.       No contractions:

Avoids contractions such as isn’t, can’t, don’t, won’t, they’re, we’re, shouldn’t etc.

3.       No colloquial or slang language, and clichés:

Some people of a particular group or sub-groups use colloquial language. It is relaxed, clear, and even vigorous, but is not always precise to communicate specific ideas. For example, it may be okay in conversations to greet people you know intimately with ‘howdy?’ or to leave a friend with a ‘see ya, will catch up asap’, ‘gotcha’ etc. but in formal business communication it is disrespectful and it may even give the impression  that the communicator is lazy, or careless. Similarly, clichés are so stale that they don’t have the effect you think they have. For example, instead of saying ‘I will hammer it out soon’, formal language would better simply say, ‘I will make a decision soon.’ It is preferable in formal language to use words like nice, alcohol, crowd and expect instead of the slangs like cool, booze, mob, and count on.

4.       Precision selection of words:

Formal language always tries to use words that are necessary, short and simple. It avoids using scientific words, or jargon or phrase where a simple equivalent will give the same meaning.

5.       Longer, more complex sentences:

Informal communication may use fragments, and it may have short sentences. But formal language uses longer and complex sentences, with clauses and appropriate punctuations. Still, keep your sentences below 20 words in length.

6.       Strict adherence to rules of grammar:

The formal language rule is zero tolerance to grammatical errors. Many of these errors are discussed in the next section of this chapter.

7.       Greater use of the passive voice:

Although in modern business communication the trend is increasingly toward using active voice, formal language is characterized by greater use of passive voice to emphasize action rather than the doer, and to impart a sense of detachment by the communicator.

 

Functions of Language:

We use language to express ourselves. Language influences, alters, and transforms the way we perceive the world. It offers a source of fun. As a dynamic system that constantly grows, language also contributes new vocabularies and ideas to us.

 

The functions of language also help to develop relations with people, to bring them together as well as to separate them. The following are the basic language functions:

 

1.       Expressive functions:

Language helps to express observations. This we do by describing what we see or hear. The description includes factual statements and no value judgements. For example, the manager announced that we had a new recruit in office. It also helps to express thoughts or opinions that include judgements of observations and experiences. For example, today’s companies focus too much on investor’s returns without giving much thought about employee welfare. Language also helps to express feelings or emotions. For example, I am very happy to get Dashain bonus from my office. Language fulfills yet another function; it helps to express needs, and wants or, to request help or support. For example, I want to buy a motorbike. Could I loan some money from the bank?

2.       Power functions:

Language is powerful and it influences, impacts and serves as a control mechanism. It gives us labels to express our identities, negative or positive. For example, the words ‘Pahade’ (for hill people) or ‘Maade’ (for Marvaris). Sometimes, for some social movements, or sub-cultures within the music or entertainment industry, language helps to reclaim old identities, such as third gender, or ‘Kaanthe’ (for backward and dumb) and recast them as a positive identity. Language is also served as a means of control. We can ask, direct, request, or plead. Control can be positive, neutral or negative.

3.       Recreational functions:

Some people like poets, writers, and comedians build their careers on their ability to use language for fun and recreation. Language serves humourand creativity, word games and crossword puzzles. Puns and riddles and bloopers are popular among people for the sheer fun they offer them. Sometimes, the poor timing of joke, sarcasm, or a word play, or their misunderstanding can create problems.

4.       Dynamic functions:

Language helps to expand and grow itself. As it grows, it adds new words and vocabulary and contributes to its own richness. It always remains changing and evolving. Sometimes two words combine to form a new word with a new meaning, or a word is clipped to form another word. In English, compound words like feedback, bombshell, newspaper and keyboard are formed by combination of two words. Words like ad, exam, prep are clipped from advertisement, examination, and preparation. New technological developments always introduce neologisms, words newly coined. At one time, email, Google (Noun) or google (Verb for search) cyber, blog etc. were neologisms. More recently, we have webinar, hacktivism, tweeple, troll, etc. Slangs or newly adopted words that are specific to a group or sub-group within the society also make language dynamic.

5.       Relational functions:

Language, specially used for interpersonal or verbal communication plays a significant role in bringing people together and maintaining relationships. Pronouns like I, you, we, our, and us are used to suggest relations. Research has shown that people who communicate honest, open and intimate relational terms more often are more likely to bond with others, and experience less stress. A shared language has the power to unite people. However, language difference, or critical use of language may divide people. Speaking in terms of us versus them can lead to bitterness and even separation. Historically, if we examine the language used by people like Gandhi, Mandela, or Hitler, we can see the power of language to unite or to divide people. Language that is sarcastic, threatening, or judgmental leads to a negative situation.

6.       Professional and technical functions:

The growth and diversity of vocabulary in language owes much to advancement in science and technology and the expansion of specialized areas of professions, from science to engineering to medicine, environment and business. Every new innovation brings to existence new symbols to refer to phenomena, products or services. For example, words like carbon, God particles (Higgs boson), endoscopy, x-ray, ozone etc. Usually, those cultures that do the inventions and discoveries enrich their language with new vocabulary and other language borrow the vocabulary verbatim.

 

Using Language Effectively:

 

The way we use language plays an important role in the communication process. The sender or the source should use appropriate language, one that suits the purpose of communication, the intended audience, the context of communication. The principles of effective business communication apply in any circumstances. In addition, effective language is inclusive or culturally sensitive and unbiased. It uses familiar words and phrases.

 

For most people in Nepal, English is an acquired language. We learn it in schools and colleges. It is a foreign language with its own distinct structures, rules and standards. Because the language is used globally and for business purposes, English has emerged an important tool of communication.

 

For effective English in writing, the following tips can be useful:

 

1.       Use concrete, not vague language:

In the vague sentence ‘The economic situation was spiraling out of control’, we instantly wonder what ‘situation’, when and where? What does the phrase ‘spiraling out of control’ mean? A concrete way to write would be ‘The economic inflation in Nepal was worsening last year.’

2.       Use a sentence fragment appropriately:

A sentence fragment occurs when you use only a phrase or an independent clause without a dependent clause. A fragment: After the meeting. Full sentence: After the meeting, they enjoyed a cultural show.

3.       Avoid overusing expressions like it is, it was, there is etc.:

These expressions are needless. For example: there is a case of corruption in the company that was reported in the media. Better: a case of corruption in the company was reported in the newspaper. Even better (in active voice): the media reported a case of corruption in the company.

4.       Avoid dangling modifiers:

When starting a sentence with an incomplete phrase or clause, remember to include a person or thing it describes. For example, with a dangling modifier: working in Nepal, his business made gains in the tourism sector. Better: he worked in Nepal, and his business made gains in the tourism sector.

5.       Use active voice whenever possible:

Active voice is direct. It is where the subject performs the action. Passive voice is indirect and it is where the subject receives the action. Use the passive only when the receiver of action is not known. For example: Arjun sold his car. Passive: The car was sold.

6.       Use parallel constructions:

Be consistent in presenting a series of ideas in sentence. For example, I like business persons who are honest, hard-working, reliable, and show philanthropic characters. Correct: I like business persons who are honest, hard-working, reliable, and philanthropic. Another example: she is good in listening, writing, speaking, and to solve problems. Correct: she is good at listening, writing, speaking, and problem solving.

7.       Place descriptive words and phrases as close as to the words they modify:

It is difficult to find out which word modifies which one if they are placed apart. For example, she has a cell phone that her brother bought for her in the purse. Better: in the purse, she has a cell phone that her brother bought for her.

8.       Avoid double negative in a sentence to avoid confusions:

The double negatives create confusions. For example, I am not uninterested in your proposal. She is not unwilling to move to Pokhara. Better: I am interested in your proposal. She is willing to move to Pokhara.

9.       Use conversational tone:

Your style in choosing your words, sentences and building paragraphs creates a certain tone. Create a conversational tone. Note that writing is different from texting. Avoid stale and pompous or high-sounding language. Avoid bragging or preaching.

 

Strong Words:

Words are here for us to help us express observations, thoughts, feelings, and needs. Don’t confuse the one with other, and use precise word to express what exactly you want to express. If your purpose is to engage the audiences, to connect with them emotionally, use affective words, typically vivid language like metaphors, figures of speech, personifications, and evocative words. Because whatever words we use they have real effect on people, communicators should pay attention to ethical implications of their words, such as hate speech and bias.

 

Successful writers pay close attention to the correct use of words. They avoid errors in meaning, spelling and grammar. Sometimes correct usage is debatable. For example, the word data is the plural form of datum. However, some experts find it okay to use data as singular noun to refer to facts or figures in general. You should always verify the true and accurate meaning of words. For this, you can consult dictionaries, thesauruses, and handbooks of grammar, mechanics, and usage. You can also access these online.

 

Using correct and precise words is not enough today in the competitive business world; you should also choose the most effective words. Constant practice, good judgment and experience help in selecting effective words. Examples of potentially weak words with stronger alternatives within brackets include increase (accelerate, simplify, enlarge, escalate, soar, swell etc.), decrease (curb, cut back, depreciate, dwindle, shrink, slacken, etc.), large or small (using exact figures such as Rs. 50 million, 200 tons, 30 squares miles, etc.), bad (deficient, abysmal, corrupt, flawed, inadequate, poor, substandard, worthless, etc.), good (admirable, beneficial, pleasant, sound, superior, worthy, etc.), attached herewith please find (please find attached), it’s our pleasure to (we are pleased), we are committed to providing (we provide), etc. Similarly, examples of unfamiliar words with better alternatives include: ascertain (find out, learn), consummate (close, bring about), peruse (read, study), circumvent (avoid), unequivocal (certain) etc.

 

An abstract word is used to express a concept, quality, or characteristic. Abstract words are often academic, intellectual, or philosophical, and they usually convey ideas. Abstract nouns like kindness, pride, evolution, legacy, beauty, or forgiveness convey abstract ideas. Similarly, in business, words like persuasion, productivity, profit, inflation, and quality help express abstract ideas. Concrete words, in contrast, are words that can be easily seen or touched. Examples: house, tree, car, blue, jump etc. Technology-related words like folder, database, website, email, software can also be concrete although they are not as directly visible in physical forms. Adjectives like some, sizable, soon, good, fine, and small are imprecise and tentative. Better to give exact figures or numbers than to be imprecise.

 

Choose words that help you to convey your thoughts clearly, specifically and strongly. Avoid weak nouns or verbs and choose your adjectives and adverbs carefully. For example, the economy saw a poor performance. Better: the economy declined.

 

Effective sentences:

A sentence is a group of related words, with a subject and verb. The combination of words helps to make a complete statement. Choose the best form of sentence out of the four varieties used in English: simple, compound, complex and compound complex.

# Simple sentence: It has a single independent clause.

Eg. The marketing manager wrote the memo.

# Compound sentence: It has several independent clauses connected by a comma such as and, but, for, nor, yet etc.

Eg. Rahul chaired the meeting, and he did a good job in facilitating the discussion.

# Complex sentence: It has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Eg. While everyone is persuasive in our office, Sangeeta, in particular, is a genius.

# Compound Complex sentence: It has several independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

Eg. The CEO was sitting by his desk, and his secretary was smiling at him when I entered his office.

 

Avoid fragments and parallelisms. To avoid monotony and strive for diversity and effectiveness, alternate between the various types of sentences. Using a long series of compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences can be boring, and tiring and even confusing. But using too many simple sentences can also make your writing or speaking choppy and does not permit you to express relationship among ideas.

 

Sometimes some ideas are more important than others and your task as an effective communicator is to emphasize important ideas in the way you construct your sentences. Give more space or time for important ideas, use extra words to describe it. For example, a multinational company is expanding business in Nepal. To emphasize the importance of the multinational company, you can provide some additional description of it: A multinational company with a global presence and having considerable experience in consumer behaviours is expanding its business in Nepal. Alternatively, more emphasis can be can be added by adding a separate sentence: A multinational company is expanding business in Nepal. It has a global presence and considerable experience in consumer behaviors.

 

The effectiveness of a sentence can be increased by using an idea as a subject. In this sentence, the emphasis is on the person: He can deliver presentations more effectively using a projector. In this sentence, the emphasis is on the projector: The projector enables him to deliver effective presentations. Similarly, emphasis is gained by placing an idea at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. The government is reaching labour agreements with more foreign countries to increase remittance. To increase remittance, the government is reaching labour agreements with more foreign countries.

 

The placement of emphasis in complex sentences depends on the relationship between the ideas expressed. To emphasize the idea expressed in the dependent clause, it is most effective to put that clause at the end of the sentence. The clause also can be placed at the beginning; however, it sounds somewhat less emphatic than putting at the end.

 

Coherent Paragraphs:

A paragraph is a group of sentences that help organize ideas on the same topic or theme. A paragraph is unified. It focuses on a single topic. A paragraph is coherent. It presents ideas in a logical and connected way. It arranges the words in a sequence and flow in order to enable readers grasp the main idea of the message and to help them understand how facts, details and examples back up the key idea.

 

While writing paragraphs, alternate between long and short ones. Highly formal documents often use longer paragraphs than informal documents. Pay attention to the three basic elements of writing a paragraph: A topic sentence, supporting sentences that develop the topic, and transitional words and phrases.

 

Topic Sentence:

Effective paragraphs focus on a single topic. A sentence that introduces the topic is called the topic sentence. It usually comes in the beginning of the paragraph and gives readers a summary of the general idea discussed in the rest of the paragraph. For example, with young Nepali males becoming increasingly concerned about their looks, the domestic market has seen increased demand for men’s personal care products and cosmetics. This topic sentence introduces the subject. It suggests what the paragraph will offer in the form of details, examples and evidences to explain the issue.

Other elements of topic sentences:

# The following items have been shipped to the US (the rest of the paragraph provides the details)

# The highlights of this year’s exhibition are as follows (the rest of the paragraph provides the details)

# Please follow these instructions for warranty benefits (the rest of the paragraph provides the details)

 

Support Sentence:

Support sentences explain, elaborate, extend and justify the topic sentence. They include examples and clarifications in support of the topic sentence. For example:

Sellers of male cosmetics say that sales have swelled in recent years with more and more young men making efforts to look more handsome. Brands like Emami Fair and Handsome, Fair and Lovely Menz Active, Nivea, Garnier and VLCC, among others, offer exclusive personal care products for men. Business of men’s cosmetic goods is now worth more than Rs. 3 billion in Nepal. Fairness creams, skin care products and face washes from various multinational companies are sold in the domestic market. According to some businesses, men’s segment is growing at the rate of 30 percent annually. To cater to growing demand, some companies have started to focus on manufacturing various products for men too.

Each of the above sentences offers one more example or evidence to explain how demand for men’s personal care products in Nepal is increasing. Each of the above new sentences further develops the main idea and helps unify the paragraph. These supporting sentences offer the facts and statistics from the real world and look convincing.

 

Transition:

Transitions are indicators of what shifts or changes are about to happen in a paragraph. By connecting one idea with another in a paragraph, they give a logical and smooth flow to the content and help avoid unnecessary confusion. The following are of the ways that help create transitions in a paragraph:

# Connecting words: Words such as and, but, or, nevertheless, however, and in addition help connect ideas.

# Antecedent pronoun: Using a pronoun that refers to a noun used previously. Example: ‘Binod Chaudhary is the CEO of Chaudhary Group. He is also known as the noodle king of Nepal.’

# Word or phrase from a previous paragraph or sentence: Repeat or echo such word or phrase. ‘A decision needs to be made quickly on tax reforms for business. The decision will help…’

# Paired words: Use words that are frequently paired. ‘The costliest bridge ever built Nepal is … The cheapest is …’

# Additional detail: Moreover, furthermore, in addition, besides, first, second, third, finally etc.

# Comparison: similarly, here again, likewise, in comparison, still, etc.

# Condition: although, if, whether etc.

# Cause and effect relationship: therefore, because, accordingly, thus, consequently, hence, as a result, so, etc.

# Contrast: yet, conversely, whereas, nevertheless, on the other hand, however, but, nonetheless etc.

# Summary: in brief, in short, to sum up etc.

# Repetition: that is, in other words, as I mentioned earlier etc.

# Illustration: for example, in particular, in this case, for instance etc.

# Time Sequence: formerly, after, when, meanwhile, sometimes etc.

# Intensification: indeed, in fact, in any event etc.

 

Commonly Confused Words:

There are many words and phrases in English that look similar or sound alike. Check the spelling and the meaning before you use the appropriate and accurate one. Look at the following examples:

·         Accept/expect

·         Affect/effect

·         Altogether/all together

·         Appraise/apprise

·         Bare/bear

·         Continual/continuous

·         Council/counsel

·         Device/devise

·         Eg./i.e

·         Eminent/imminent

·         Farther/further

·         Imply/enfer

·         Lay/lie

·         Lose/loose

·         Perquisite/prerequisite

·         Principal/principle

·         Stationary/stationery

·         That/which

·         Through/thorough

·         Uninterested/disinterested

·         Who/whom/who’s/whose

·         Adverse/averse

·         All ready/already

·         Amoral/immoral

·         Assure/ensure

·         Compare to/compare with

·         Compliment/complement

·         Definite/definitive

·         Discreet/discrete

·         Elicit/illicit

·         Ensure/insure

·         Fortuitous/fortunate

·         Its/it’s

·         Lead/led

·         Peak/peek

·         Pressure/pressurize

·         Proceed/precede

·         Than/then

·         There/their/they’re

·         To/too/two

·         Weather/whether

·         Your/you’re

The difference in British and American English can also create errors:

·         Civilise/civilize

·         Realise/realize

·         Colour/color

·         Centre/center

·         Inflexion/inflection

·         Cheque/check

 

 

 

Business Vocabulary

 

Importance of Business Vocabulary:

 

Vocabulary is the body of words used in a particular language. Business vocabulary refers to words, phrase, and terminologies that are specific to business and trade. Not knowing appropriate vocabulary can be embarrassing in business as well as in other professions. But besides avoiding such situations, vocabulary is important for many other reasons. Good vocabulary means good communication that potentially contributes to better job performance and productivity. It can lead to your career advancement, increase in salary and promotion in job. It raises interpersonal skills, self-confidence and job satisfaction.

 

It is wise decision to invest some of your time and resources in improving your business vocabulary. In the long run it pays. Studies have shown that people with better vocabulary hold higher positions and earn more than those who have poor vocabulary.

 

Business Vocabulary in Use:

 

Although simple, clear, and concrete writing avoids clichés, jargons, and slangs, it cannot avoid business-specific vocabulary to communicate effectively. Appropriate vocabulary helps to make the language precise, accurate and strong. It also makes the language relevant to the subject matter. In this section, we offer examples of business-specific terminologies, idioms and expressions, and vocabulary in speaking situations.

 

Business-Specific Terminologies:

 

The following are samples of vocabulary items in specific areas of business and commerce:

Advertising terms:

·         Ad: abbreviation for advertisement, item of publicity for a product or service, in magazine, on TV etc.

·         Benefit: advantage of a product or service, usually derived from its features

·         Circulation: average number of copies of a newspaper or magazine sold in a particular period

·         Classified ads: small advertisements in a magazine or newspaper categorized by subject

·         Commercial: paid advertisement on radio or TV

·         Double-page spread: advertisement printed across 2 pages in a magazine or newspaper

·         Poster: large sheet of paper, usually illustrated, used as advertisement

·         Prime time: hours on radio and TV with largest audience, especially, the evening hours

·         Promote: to increase sales of a product by publicizing and advertising it

·         Signboard: hoarding board, usually outdoors, for advertising posters

·         Slot: specific time in a broadcasting schedule, when a commercial may be shown

·         Target: objective, what one is aiming at

 

Banking terms:

·         Balance: the difference between credits and debits in an account

·         Branch: local office or bureau of a bank

·         Check: written order to a bank to pay the stated sum from one’s account

·         Check book: book containing detachable checks

·         Credit card: card from a bank authorizing the purchasing of goods on credit

·         Credit: money in a bank account; sum added to a bank account; money lent by a bank

·         Current account: bank account from which money may be drawn at any time such as a checking account

·         Debit: a sum deducted from a bank account, as for a check

·         Deposit account: bank account on which interest is paid; savings account

·         Fill in: to fill out or to add written information to a document to make it complete

·         Interest: money paid for the use of money lent

·         Loan: money lent by a bank etc. and that must be repaid with interest

·         Overdraft: deficit in a bank account caused by withdrawing more money than is paid in

·         Payee: person to whom money is paid

·         Statement: a record of transactions in a bank account

·         Withdraw: to take money out of a bank account

 

Contract terms:

·         Agreement: an arrangement between two or more people, countries etc. such as a contract

·         Appendix: additional or supplementary material at the end of a contract, or a book etc.

·         Arbitration: settlement of a dispute by a person chosen by both parties

·         Article: a particular statement or stipulation in a contract etc. clause

·         Clause: a particular statement or stipulation in a contract etc. article

·         Condition: anything necessary before the performance of something else

·         Force majeure: superior, power; unforeseeable event excusing one party from fulfilling a contract

·         Fulfill: to satisfy a condition; to complete the required task; to fulfill

·         Herein: in here; in this (document etc.)

·         Hereinafter: in the following part (of this document etc.)

·         Hereto: to this (document etc.) ex: attached here to

·         Heretofore: up until now; until the present; before this

·         In behalf of: in the interests of (person etc.); for (person etc.); on behalf of

·         Null and void: invalid; without legal force; not binding

·         Party: the person or persons or forming one side of an agreement

·         Stipulate: to specify as an essential condition

·         Warrant: to give formal assurance; to guarantee

·         Whereas: it being the case that; in view of the fact that (this is usually included in introduction of contracts

 

Employment terms:

·         Bonus: additional pay given to employee as incentive or reward

·         Dismiss: to remove or discharge from employment; to sack; to fire

·         Employee: person employed

·         Employer: person or firm who employs people

·         Interview: an oral examination of an applicant for a job

·         Make redundant: to dismiss because of not being needed

·         Maternity leave: period of absence from work (for a woman) when having a baby

·         Notice: advance warning of intention to resign

·         Perk: perquisite; something additional to regular salary (eg. free meals; a car)

·         Personal officer: manager responsible for recruitment, training and welfare of personnel

·         Personnel: the people who work for a firm

·         Promotion: advancement in rank or position

·         Prospects: opportunity for success, promotion etc.

·         Recruit: to look for and employ personnel

·         Resign: to give up a job

·         Resume: short account of one’s education, career etc.; curriculum vitae or CV (in the UK)

·         Retire: to leave employment, especially because of age

·         Salary: a fixed, regular payment, usually monthly, made by employer to employee

·         Staff: the people who work for a firm or a particular department; employees

·         Take on: to employ; to hire

 

Import/export terms:

·         Bill of lading: list of goods and shipping instructions; way bill

·         Cargo: goods or products that are being transported or shipped

·         Certificate of origin: a document that shows where goods come from

·         Container: huge box to hold goods for transport

·         Customs: government tax or duty on imported goods; the people who collect this tax

·         Declare: to make a statement of taxable goods

·         Freight: goods being transported; cargo

·         Irrevocable: that which cannot be undone; unalterable

·         Letter of credit: a letter from a bank authorized a person to draw money from another bank

·         Merchandise: things bought and sold; commodities; wares

·         Packing list: a document that is sent with goods to show that they have been checked

·         Pro forma invoice: an invoice or request for payment sent in advance of goods supplied

·         Quay: a solid, artificial landing place for (un) loading ships; wharf

·         Ship: to send or transport by land, sea or air

·         Shipment: goods sent or transported by land, sea or air

·         Shipping agent: a person acting for or representing a ship or ships at a port

·         Waybill: list of goods and shipping instructions; bill of lading

 

Insurance terms:

·         Actuary: a person who calculates risks for insurance companies

·         Assessor: a person who calculates the value of something (ex. A building, car etc.)

·         Claim: an application for payment under an insurance policy

·         Comprehensive: (of an insurance policy) all-inclusive; providing complete protection

·         Consequential loss: a loss that happens as a consequence of or as a result of another

·         Cover: the protection given by an insurance policy (ex. Public liability cover)

·         Employer’s liability: liability or responsibility of a firm for damage caused to one of its employees

·         Goods in transit: property, merchandise or any goods in the process of being transported

·         Insurance broker: agent who arranges insurance, between insurer and policy holder

·         Liability: the state of being liable; anything for which person is liable

·         Liable: legally obliged to pay for damage, injury etc. responsible

·         Loss: death, injury, damage etc. that is the basis for a claim

·         Policy holder: the person to whom an insurance policy is issued

·         Premium: a payment, usually monthly, yearly etc. for an insurance policy

·         Product liability: liability or responsibility of a firm for damage caused by one of its products

·         Public liability: responsibility of a firm for damage caused to a member of the public

·         Reinsurance: the insuring of a risk by one insurance company with another

·         Risk: chance or possibility of injury, loss etc. person or thing causing risk

 

Business law terms:

·         Attorney: a person appointed to act for or represent another, lawyer

·         Brief: written statement of facts for a court

·         Case: statement of the facts in a trial

·         Contract: a formal agreement, usually in writing, between two or more parties

·         Court of law: the place where law cases are heard and decided; court

·         Evidence: information presented to a court to prove or support a point in question

·         Guilty: responsible for wrong; culpable

·         Judge: public official with authority to hear and decide cases in a court of law

·         Jury: a group of people chosen to hear the evidence of a cases in a court of law

·         Lawsuit: a trial at court between two private parties

·         Lawyer: a person trained in law and who advises or represents others

·         Plead: to defend a law case, to declare oneself to be guilty or not guilty

·         Sentence: decision of a court, especially as to the punishment, the punishment

·         Solicitor: lawyer advising clients

·         Sue: to start legal action against someone in a court of law

·         Sum up: to summarize and review the evidence of a case

·         Trial: a formal examination of a case in a court of law

·         Verdict: the formal decision or finding of a judge or jury

·         Without prejudice: without detriment or damage to a legal right or claim

 

Marketing terms:

·         Brand: a particular make of product

·         Branded: a product made by a particular company

·         Consumer: the person who buys and uses a product or service

·         Cost: to estimate the price of making a product

·         Develop: to create a new product or improve an existing one

·         Distribution: the delivering of products to end-users, including advertising, storing etc.

·         End-user: the person, customer etc. who is the ultimate user of a product

·         Image: the concept or perception of a firm or product held by the general public

·         Label: small piece of paper, metal etc. on a product giving information about it

·         Launch: to introduce a new product, with publicity etc.

·         Mail order: the selling of goods by post

·         Market research: study of consumers’ needs and preferences, often for a particular product

·         Packaging: the wrapping or container for a product

·         Point of sale: the place where a product is actually sold to the public

·         Product: something made to be sold; merchandise or services

·         Public relation: creation and maintenance of a good public image

·         Registered: registered or officially recorded as a trademark

·         SWOT: strength, weakness, opportunity, threat

·         Sponsor: firm supporting an organization in return for advertising space

·         Total product: the whole product, including name, packaging, instructions, reliability, after-sale etc.

·         Trademark: special symbol, design, word etc. used to represent a product or firm

 

Terms related meetings:

·         AGM: annual general meeting

·         AOB: any other business (usually the last item on an agenda)

·         Absent: not here; not at the meeting; not present

·         Agenda: a written program or schedule for a meeting

·         Apologies: item on agenda announcing people who are absent; apologies for absence

·         Ballot: a type of vote, usually in writing and usually secret

·         Casting vote: a deciding vote (usually by the chairman) when the votes are otherwise equal

·         Chairman: the person who leads or presides at a meeting; chairperson; chair

·         Conference call: telephone call between three or more people in different locations

·         Conference: formal meeting for discussion, especially a regular one held by an organization

·         Consensus: general agreement

·         Decision: a conclusion or resolution to do something

·         Item: a separate point for discussion as listed on an agenda

·         Matters arising: item on agenda for discussion of what has happened as a result of last meeting

·         Minutes: a written record of everything said at a meeting

·         Proxy vote: a vote cast by one person for or in place of another

·         Show of hands: raised hands to express an opinion in a vote

·         Unanimous: in complete agreement; united in opinion

·         Video conference: conference of people in different locations linked by satellite, TV etc.

·         Vote: to express opinion in a group by voice or hand etc.

 

Terms related to money:

·         ATM: automated teller machine (in the US); cash dispenser (in the UK)

·         Banknote: a piece of paper money; bill (in the US)

·         Black market: illegal traffic in officially controlled commodities such as foreign currency

·         Cash: coins or bank notes (not checks); actual money paid as opposed to credit

·         Cashier: person dealing with cash transactions in a bank, store etc.

·         Coin: a piece of metal money

·         Currency: the money in general use or circulation in any country

·         Debit: money owed by one person to another

·         Exchange rate: the rate at which one currency can be exchanged for another

·         Foreign exchange: the currency of other countries

·         Hard currency: currency that will probably not fall in value and is readily accepted

·         Invest: to put money for profit into business, land etc.

·         Legal tender: currency that cannot legally be refused in payment of a debit

·         Petty cash: a cash funded for small, everyday expenses

·         Soft currency: currency that will probably fall in value and is not readily accepted

·         Speculate: risky buying of foreign currency, land etc. for rapid gain

·         Transaction: commercial exchange; a deal

 

Terms related to presentations:

·         Body language: non-verbal communication through facial expressions, body movements

·         Finally: typical word used to signal the last of several points or subjects

·         Flip chart: a pad of large paper sheets on a stand for presenting information. For example, typical phrase used to signal an illustration or sample of a particular point

·         Handout: anything (report, sample etc.) handed or given to people at a presentation

·         In conclusion: typical phrase used to signal the summing up or final part of a presentation

·         Ladies and gentlemen: polite phrase often used to address an audience of men and women

·         Marker: a pen with a broad, felt tip for writing on white boards

·         Microphone: electrical instrument that one speaks into for amplification of the voice etc.

·         Pointer: device (rod or electric torch etc.) for indicating things on a map, screen etc.

·         Rapport: relationship of presenter with audience

·         Screen: large, flat, reflective white surface on which films, slides etc. are projected

·         Signal: a sign to help the audience understand where one is in a presentation

·         Slide: small (usually 35 mm) photographic transparency

·         To start with: typical phrase used to signal the beginning of a particular subject or topic

·         Turning now to: typical phrase used to signal a change from one subject or topic to another

·         Visual aids: things that one can look at in a presentation (ex: films, maps, charts etc.)

·         White board: large, flat, white surface or board on which to write or draw with markers

 

Sales terms:

·         Buyer: any person who buys anything; a person employed by a firm to buy

·         Client: a person who buys services from a lawyer, architect or other professionals

·         Close: to finalize a deal or sale; to make a sale

·         Cold call: to telephone a prospect without previous contact

·         Customer: a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business

·         Deal: a business transaction

·         Discount: a reduction in the price; a deduction, usually expressed as percentage

·         Follow up: to continue to follow; to maintain contact

·         Guarantee: a promise that a product will be repaired or replaced, if faulty

·         In bulk: in large quantity, usually at a lower price

·         Lead: useful indication of a possible customer to be followed up

·         Objection: a reason given by a prospect for not buying

·         Overcome: to overcome an objection; to show an objection is invalid

·         Product: something made and usually for sale

·         Prospect: a possible or probable customer; prospective customer

·         Representative or sales representative: person who represents and sells for a firm; salesperson

·         Retail: to sell in small quantities (as in a shop to the public)

·         Service: work done usually in return for payment

·         Wholesale: to sell in bulk (as to a shop for resale to the public)

 

Terms related to organizational structures:

·         AGM: annual general meeting of a company’s shareholders board of directors

·         Accounts department: department responsible for administering a company’s financial affairs

·         Chairman: person who heads a Board of Directors; head of a company; chairperson

·         Director: a member of the board of directors

·         Executive officer: person who manages the affairs of a corporation

·         Headquarters: a company’s principal or main office or center of control

·         Manager: person responsible for day-to-day running of a department; executive officer

·         Managing director: senior director after the chairperson responsible for day-to-day direction of a company

·         Marketing dept.: department responsible for putting goods on market, packaging, advertising etc.

·         Organization chart: a table or plan showing a company’s structure graphically

·         Personnel dept.: department responsible for recruitment and welfare of staff or employees

·         President: the highest executive officer of a company; head of a company

·         Production dept.: department responsible for physical creation of product

·         Purchasing dept.: department responsible for finding and buying everything needed by a company

·         R&D department: department responsible for research and development of (new) products

·         Reception: the place where visitors and clients report on arrival at a company

·         Sales department: department responsible for finding customers and making sales

·         Shareholder: person who holds or owns shares in or a part of a company or corporation

·         Vice president: any of several executive officers, each responsible for a separate division

 

 

Business Idioms and Expressions:

An idiom is a popular word or phrase that is particular to a certain person or group of people. An idiom’s meaning is different from its literal meaning. For example: ‘back to square one’ means ‘to start all over again’. ‘To kick the bucket’ doesn’t mean what it seems to mean, its actual meaning is ‘to die’. An idiom is like a slang term. Only if you are familiar with the term, you will know its meaning. Idiom remain stable and their meanings don’t change easily. They are influenced by culture or geographic locations.

 

An expression, on the other hand, refers to the way we express something not just through words but also through facial features and body language. It is a particular word, phrase, or form of word that is often familiar, such as a proverb or a metaphor. For example, we use ‘screw up’ to refer to a mistake. An expression helps to phrase an idea in a particular way, and it may include idioms. Its meaning is literal as intended by the speaker or user.

 

Be selective and specific in the use of idioms or expressions otherwise they can create confusion or misunderstanding. The following is a list of common business idioms and expressions:

 

A long haul: the long road; the option that takes the most time

A long shot: something that will probably not succeed but is worth trying

A rule of thumb: a personal principle

Ahead of the curve: doing better than expected

Ahead of the game: successful

At a premium: at a high price, at a relatively high price

Back-of-the-envelope calculations: quick calculations; estimates using approximate numbers, instead of exact numbers

Ball rolling: a situation in which everyone participating came out on top; everyone won or got what they wanted

Be in hot water: to be in trouble

Be in the dark/keep somebody in the dark: to be uninformed; to not know what’s happening

Be in the red: at a deficit; running at a loss; losing money

Be on the same wavelength: to think a similar way to others

Belt-tightening: reduction of expenses

Bent over backwards: try hard to please; go out of the way

Between a rock and a hard place: dilemma; two possibilities that are not good

Bite the bullet: to make a difficult or painful decision; to take a difficult step

Bitter pill to swallow: bad news; something unpleasant to accept

Blockbuster: a big success; a huge hit

Brownie points: credit for doing a good deed or for giving someone a compliment (usually a boss or teacher)

Blow you away: affect intensely; overwhelm

Breathe down somebody’s neck: to make someone feel uncomfortable by watching them very closely

Bummed out: tired out or stressed out

Burn out (rate): physical or mental exhaustion

Burn your bridges: ruin a relationship, resulting in you being unable to return somewhere

Call it a day: expression used near the end of a day that means ‘That’s enough for today. Let’s end and go home.’

Call the shots: to make the decisions

Cash cow: a product, service, or business division that generates a lot of cash for the company, without requiring much investment

Cash in on: to make money on; to benefit financially from

Climb the corporate ladder: advance in one’s career; the process of getting promoted and making it to senior management

Climb to the top of the career/corporate ladder: to ascend in a company by being promoted from lower positions to higher ones

Come under fire: getting public criticism (getting shot at with criticism)

Compare apples to oranges: to compare two unlike things; to make an invalid comparison

Crunch the numbers: do the accounting or financial calculations

Crunch time: a short period when there’s high pressure to achieve a result

Dog-eat-dog-world: a cruel and aggressive world in which people just look out for themselves

Cut corners: do something the cheapest or easiest way

Cut to the chase: to focus on what’s important

Cutting it close: doing something risky or at last minute (as if you were cutting vegetables and the knife is too close to your finger)

Dot your i’s and cross your t’s: to be very careful; to pay attention to details

Drop the ball: to fail to do your job or to do well

Drum up business: to create business; to find new customers

Ducks in a row: having/getting things in order (from the fly-formation of ducks)

Face the music: to admit that there’s a problem; to deal with an unpleasant situation realistically

Fall through the cracks: to be forgotten; to fail

Fast track a project: to make a project a high priority; to speed up the time frame of a project

For the record: a very neutral way of stating an opinion (personal emotion/intent to act are not being expression)

FYI: pronounced ‘F-Y-I’ acronym for ‘for your information’

Game plan: the strategy of reaching an objective

Generate lots of buzz: to cause many people to start talking about a product or service, usually in a positive way that increase sales

Get a pink slip: get laid off (originates from use of carbon copies)

Get a reality check: realize how something really is (as opposed to how you might imagine it)

Get the bugs out: find the mistakes or prevent problems

Get your feet in the door: to complete the first step towards achieving an opportunity

Get/be given the sack/sack (verb): to be fired

Give a rain check: change a meeting time to another day to be decided later

Give and take: free flowing of ideas and conversation; making a deal by trading

Give somebody free rein: to give someone free control of something

Glass ceiling: a metaphor for a barrier that prevents people, typically women or minorities, from ascending to high positions

Go bust: to lose all your money

Go down swinging: keep trying until the end

Go for broke: wagering everything

Hand in hand: together; along with

Handful of players: a few who are competing in an industry

Hands are tied: a person can do nothing

Hard sell: an aggressive way of selling

Have a lot on one’s plate: to have a lot to do; to have too much to do, to have too much to cope with

Have your work cut out: expression that means one has a lot of work to do in a short period of time

Headhunt: a recruitment effort

Hold your horses: to slow down and wait or move slowly

In the black: become profitable, as opposed to being ‘in the red’

In the office loop: understand what’s happening

In the pink: having a lot of money (most probably from 15^th century when pink meant perfection)

Jump the gun: to start doing something too soon or ahead of everybody else

Jump through hoops: to go through a lot of difficult work for something; to face many bureaucratic obstacles

Keep one’s eye on the pizza: to stay focused on the end result; to not let small problems get in the way of good results

Keep pace: continue on

Keep something under wraps: to keep something secret; to not let anybody know about a new project or plan

Kickback: rest and enjoy your time

Know the ropes: have knowledge of

Know/learn the rope: the process of learning about something so you are comfortable with it

Land on your feet: to do well; to succeed

Line of work: job field; type of work

Make a bundle: make a lot of money

Make the rounds: at a social event, to talk to everyone or most people

Meeting someone halfway: compromise

Miss the boat: miss an opportunity

Multi-task: do many things at once

Mum’s the word: let’s keep quiet about this; I agree not to tell anyone about this

My gut tells me: I have a strong feeling that; my intuition tells me

Need a crash course: need to learn very quickly, often to meet a deadline (also take crash course)

Not set in stone: not finalized, able to be changed

Nothing ventured, nothing gained: if you don’t try to do something, you will never succeed

On the back burner: set as a lower priority

On the ball: to be alert and aware

On the other hand: an opposite way to think about something or perceive something

On the right track: to continue on the right path or process

On the same page: have the same understanding or knowledge

On top of trends: modern; aware and responding to the latest tastes

Pass the buck: to shift the blame; to blame somebody else

Pick somebody’s brains: to ask someone many questions so you can learn from him/her

Play it by ear: decide to deal with something how it happens rather than planning

Plug (a product): to promote a product; to talk positively about a product

Pull one’s weight: to do one’s share of the work

Pull the plug: to put a stop to a project or initiative, usually because it’s not going well; to stop something from moving forward; to discontinue

Punch to the gut: give it all you have got

Put a stake in the ground: to take the first step; to make a big move to get something started; to make a commitment

Put something on hold: to postpone something

Raise the bar: to raise standards or expectations

Rally the troops: to motivate others; to get other people excited about doing something; to do something to improve the morale of your employees and get them energized about doing some work

Reality check: thinking realistically about a situation

Red tape: bureaucracy; formal rules that usually make something hard to do

Same boat: in the same situation

Screw up: not doing well; a mistake

See eye to eye: to agree on something; to have the same views on something

Set the record straight: to clarify what is true/factual about something

Shape up or ship out: improve your behavior or leave; if you don’t improve your performance, you are going to get fired

Shooting the breeze: talking casually without purpose

Shot (shoot) from the hip: spontaneous, spur of the moment reaction or decision

Slack off/be a slacker: to work unproductively and lazily

Small talk: discussion about light topics such as the weather

Start/get the ball rolling: to take the first step to begin a process

Start-up: a new business aimed at new markets

Stay on top of things: learn and know about latest happenings

Stay on your toes: pay attention and be aware

Take a rain check: accept changing a meeting to another day, the new day to be chosen later

Take all the credit: take or claim all the recognition for something

Take off: move ahead and perform well

Take the bull by the horns: to confront a problem head on

Talk shop: talking about work-related things

The ball is in your court: used to say that you now have control of the situation

The bottom line: the final result

The fine/small print: the information typed in a smaller font, usually on contract

Think out of the box: to think differently from a new perspective

Through the roof: very high; higher than expected

Throw cold water over (an idea, a plan): to present reasons why something will not work; to discourage

To be swamped: to have too much work to do

Trade-off: to lose something in return of gaining something

Troubleshoot: solve problems

Turn around one’s business: to make a business profitable again; to go from not making profits to being profitable again

Twist somebody’s arm: to make a great effort to convince somebody to do something for you

Up to speed: to be updated; to not be behind; to have all the current information

Up-and-coming: young and rising to the top; new and becoming successful

Water over the bridge: something that has happened and can’t be changed

Win-win- situation: a situation in which everyone participating come out on top; everyone wins or gets what they want

Work down to the wire: to work until the last minute; to work until just before the deadline

Yes man: an employee who always agrees with the boss or does whatever the boss asks him or her to do

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too: you can’t have it both ways; you can’t have the best of both worlds

 

Vocabulary in communication situations:

While writing and correspondence in business, special vocabulary is used. Most of the business communications take place in oral. The following sections provide some examples of language for those common situations:

 

Writing Situations:

Correspondences generally require special, commonly occurring vocabulary. You will learn more about writing situations in the chapters that focus on writing various types of messages.

 

Requesting information:

I am writing to inquire about…

I am writing in reference to…

Could you please send me…

I read/heard….and would you like…

 

Responding to request:

Thank you for your interest/inquire

You can learn more about this at…

Enclosed is the information you requested.

If you have further questions,

If you require assistance, please contact:

If I can be of more help, please feel free to contact me at…

 

Thanking with goodwill:

Thank you for your hospitality

I enjoyed have lunch with you…

Congratulations on your…

I want (ed) to congratulate you on your new…….

I was happy to hear that…

 

Introducing a product or service:

I am writing to tell you about….

Next month, we are launching our new……

This product/service is designed to….

 

Citing or referring:

I am writing in regard to…

I am writing in reference to…

Please refer to the enclosed invoice/brochure.

I hope you have had a chance to look over the materials we sent.

 

Confirming:

I am writing to confirm…

I would like to confirm what we discussed yesterday.

I would just like to confirm the main points we discussed…

 

Notifying:

I am writing to let you know that…

Please be aware/informed that…

I would like to inform you of a recent policy change.

I am happy to inform you that…

Your request for a loan has been approved.

 

Offering assistance:

We would be happy to…

If we can be of assistance, please let us know.

 

Requesting a payment:

According to our records…

Our records show that…

Your monthly installment is past due.

Please send payment as soon as possible.

 

Speaking Situations:

The following are the examples of speaking situations. More examples are offered later in the chapters that focus on oral messages.

 

Common interpersonal situations:

 

Introducing others:

Pooja: Have you two met each other?

Seema: No, we haven’t.

Pooja: Seema, this is Sharmila. Sharmila, this is Seema.

(Seema and Sharmila smile and exchange Namaste or shake hands)

Seema: Nice to meet you, Sharmila.

Sharmila: Nice to meet you too, Seema.

 

Formal introduction:

I would like to introduce you to my dear friend, Mr. Sajan.

Allow me to introduce myself/my colleague, Mr. Shrestha.

Let me introduce you to my colleague, Sitashma Sharma.

Mr. Sharma, this is Suman Shah from Nepal Softonik Pvt. Ltd.

How do you do?

How do you do?

It’s a pleasure meeting you.

(Remember to smile, maintain eye contact, and shake hands firmly)

 

Follow-up to introduction:

Seema: Where are you from, Sharmila?

Sharmila: I’m from Pokhara.

Seema: Pokhara, where in Pokhara from?

Sharmila: Lakeside, the heart of Pokhara, how about you, Seema?

Seema: Dhangadi. A municipality in Kailali.

Sharmila: How do you know Rohan?

Seema: We were in the same class in school.

(when meeting someone for the first time, ask only general questions about work, friends, place, etc. Do not ask very personal questions such as the person’s age, birth date, salary, weight, marital status etc.)

 

Starting conversations:

General greetings and inquiries:

How’s it going?

How’s everything?

How’s life?

(The above questions mean ‘How are you?’)

 

Asking about present activities:

What’s new?

(The above question means ‘What are you doing now?)

 

Asking and telling about recent events:

What’s new?

Guess what?

(What has happened since I last saw you?)

(I want to tell you something. Ask me about it.)

(The appropriate response to this is ‘What?’)

Meeting someone you don’t know:

 

A: Sharmila Pandey? (Are you Sharmila Pandey? You must be Sharmila Pandey?)

B: Yes.

A: Hi, I’m Raj Shrestha of Koshi Industries. Welcome to Kathmandu. I hope you had a pleasant flight.

B: Indeed, I had. Thank you.

 

Welcoming visitors:

 

Welcome to Samir Enterprises.

Welcome to Kathmandu. I’m Samir Shah.

 

Describing jobs:

 

What do you do?

What do you do for a living?

What is your occupation?

What type of work do you do?

Where do you work?

-          I’m a salesperson.

-          I’m in sales.

-          I’m in the toy business.

-          I’m a mechanic at Kantipur Electronics.

-          I’m consultant for Asian Engineering Company.

 

What company do you work for?

-          I work for Worldlink.

-          I work at Worldlink.

-          I’m with Worldlink.

 

What do you do there?

 

What do you do at Worldling?

-          I’m a software engineer.

-          I work in the sales department.

-          I’m in customer service.

-          I work as an adviser.

-          I look at the accounts.

-          I am a helper.

What do you do at Nepal Software Ltd.?

-          I’m in charge of marketing.

-          I’m responsible for sales.

-          I program computers.

-          I recruit and train employees.

What do you do (in your job)?

What are you in charge of?

-          I am in charge of training employees.

-          I am responsible for watering the plants.

-          I take care of corporate accounts.

-          I usually answer telephones.

-          I mainly write reports.

-          I repair equipment.

What does you company do?

-          We design software.

-          We build storage units.

-          We produce small appliances.

-          We’re in the insurance business.

 

Company description:

What company do you work for?

Which company are you with?

Who do you represent?

-          I work for Nepal Software Ltd.

-          I’m with Nepal Software Ltd.

-          I represent the Nepal Net.

What is the name of your company?

Where are you located?

-          The name of our company is …

-          Our company is located in…

-          Our headquarters is in…

What (type of business) do you do?

What business are you in?

-          We are in the computer business.

-          We’re in computers.

-          We sell…

-          We produce…

-          We manufacture…

-          Our major products are…

 

Describing products:

 

Tell me about this (product)

What can you tell me about this (product)?

Can you give me some information/details about this?

What is special/unique about this?

What are the specifications?

-          Let me tell you about…

-          This is our (newest) product.

-          This is one of our latest designs.

-          It made of…

-          It can be used for…

-          You can use it to…

-          You can…with it

-          This has/contains…

-          This one features…

-          This comes with…

-          This is equipped with…

-          This particular model…

-          This is priced at…

-          It costs…

 

Describing projects:

What are your current projects?

What are you working on (at present)?

What are your major initiatives in this area?

-          We are currently working on…

-          We are in the process of…

-          We are developing…

-          We are designing…

-          We are building…

-          We are marketing…

 

Asking for information:

 

Company information:

What does your company do? -We produce marketing materials.

What is your specialty? What do you specialize in? What is your main line of business? -We specialize in art and design?

What are your major products? -We produce office machines. We design software.

What services do you provide? -We provide technical support.

 

Product information:

Could you give me some (more) information on this? -This is one of our top brands. It’s our best-selling refrigerator. This one is the best in its class.

What can you tell me about this (product)? -We’re really pleased with its performance. It’s an excellent computer. I highly recommend this one.

Tell me about this one/model. -This model comes with several features. This particular one has two components.

 

Information about price:

What are you asking for this? -This (one) sells for Rs. 3500.

What does this sell for? -This one goes for Rs. 2000.

How much is it? -This one is priced at Rs. 7500.

How much does it run? -It’s Rs. 5000.

 

Buying and selling:

May I help you?

What can I do for you?

-          Yes, I’d like to buy a pair of shoes.

-          They’re in the other side of the store, to the left.

-          Ok.

-          I’m looking for a mobile phone.

-          No, I’m just browsing. Thanks anyway.

-          How much is this?

-          It’s Rs. 500.

-          Is there something I can help you with?

-          No, thanks.

 

Methods of payment:

I’d like to pay (in) cash.

I’ll put it on my credit card.

Can I charge it?

Could you put that on my bill?

Could I put that on my account?

Could you send me an invoice?

Could you bill me (for that)?

May I … pay in cash, pay by check, pay by credit card etc.

Could you deliver it to my office?

Do you charge for shipping?

Do I need to pay for postage and handling?

How long will it take?

 

Explaining:

Can you explain…

Can you tell me why…

Why…

What happened…

Well…

Let me explain…

Let me tell you why…

Here’s what happened:

There’s a (good) reason for this:

The reason…

I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that (right now).

Can I get back to you on that?

I’ll explain (a little) later.

We’ll come to that later.

We’ll get to that in a few minutes.

Can we save that until later?

 

Invitations:

 

Informal:

Would you like to…

We’re going to… Would you like to come along?

There’s a …(tonight). Would you like to go?

How about going to…?

Do you want to…?

I wonder if you would like to…

I was wondering if you would like to…

 

Formal:

I’d like to invite you to…

If you have time, I’ll like to invite you…

Would you like to join us for (event) at (time)?

We’d be glad to have you accompany us…

We’d be delighted/honored to have you as our guest at…

 

Encouraging words:

It’s good to be here. (guest says)

I hope you had a nice flight. (host says)

Thanks for coming. (host says)

I’m glad you came.

Thanks for inviting me. (guest says)

I really had a good time.

 

Requesting:

 

Informal:

Please…

Would you…

Could you…

Would you please…

Could you possibly…

Would you mind (verb+ing)…

Could you do me a favor?

 

Formal:

Could I ask you to…?

Could I have Friday off?

Could I have Friday off, please?

Would you mind if I asked you to…?

Would you be so kind as to…?

I was hoping you/I could…?

I was wondering if you/I could…?

Do you think you/I might be able to…?

 

Offering:

 

Informal:

-Beer?

-No, thank you. I don’t drink.

 

Would you like some coffee?

Would you like some lemonade?

-Yes, please.

How about a glass of water?

-Sure. Thanks

-Here, a/some…

Would you like one of these?

-Okay. Thanks

Can I get you something?

-No. Thanks anyway.

Can I get you something to drink?

-Juice would be fine, thanks.

 

Formal:

Would you care for some….?

Would you like to try?

Let me offer you…

Let me get you a/some…

 

 

Expressing appreciation:

Thanks.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for the dinner.

Thank you for the nice gift.

I appreciate your hospitality.

I appreciate your lending me the book.

 

Apologizing:

I’m sorry.

I made a mistake.

Please accept my apologies.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…

I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that…

That’s okay.

No problem.

 

Sharing bad news:

I’m sorry I have to tell you this, but…

I hate to tell you this, but…

I don’t know how to tell you this, but…

I have some bad news.

 

Formal or written apologies:

We regret to inform you that…

Regretfully…

Unfortunately, …

 

Telephone talk:

Receiver(R): Hello.

Caller(C): Hello. Is Arushi there/

R: I’m sorry. She’s not here right now.

C: What time will she be back?

R: Around six.

C: This evening?

R: Yes. May I ask who’s calling?

C: This is her friend, Malika.

R: Okay. I’ll tell her you called.

C: Thanks.

 

 

R: Tamrakar residence.

C: Is this Gopinath?

R: No, this is his son, Tilak.

C: You sure sound like Gopinath.

R: Oh. Can I take a message?

C: Sure. Please tell him that Jagat called.

R: Okay. I’ll give him the message.

C: Thanks.

R: Bye.

 

Making suggestions:

I think you should…

I don’t think you should…

Maybe you should…

Why don’t you…

Why don’t…

Let’s…

-that’s a good idea.

-thanks for the advice.

-good suggestion.

-sounds like a good idea.

 

Future plans:

What are your plans for the future?

What are your projections for the next quarter?

What do you expect to achieve in the near future?

What are your sales projections for next six months?

What are your goals for the coming year?

-we expect…

-we plan…

-we project…

-we hope…

-we should…

-we will be visiting…

-if all goes as planned,

-our projections are…

-according to our projections,

 

Are you free this Friday?

What are you doing this weekend?

Are you busy tonight?

Do you have time after class?

-sure! Do you want to do something?

-I’m free all weekend.

-I’m open this evening.

-sorry, I have plans this weekend.

-I’m going to Pokhara with my friends.

-unfortunately, not. I have something else scheduled.

-not really. I’m kind of busy tonight.

-I’m not free on Friday, but I do have time on Saturday.

-I’m going to be out of town, but I’ll be back next weekend.

-I have something planned. How about tomorrow?

-I’m busy today. How about some other time?

 

Do you want to go to a movie?

How about having dinner together?

There’s a new Rajesh Hamal movie at the City Center. Want to go?

Why don’t we go play cricket?

-sounds good.

-good idea.

-that would be fun/great.

-when/where should we meet?

 

Asking for favours:

Excuse me,

Pardon me,

Sorry to bother you, but…

Can you take a picture for us?

Will you open the window for me?

Would you turn on the laptop?

Could you help me with these packets?

Would you please turn off the TV?

Could you possibly give me a ride home?

Would you mind taking a picture for us?

Would you be so kind as to help me in distributing these posters?

 

Follow up:

Thanks for your help.

Thank you so much.

Thank, I really appreciate it.

 

Requesting to repeat information:

Excuse me?

Pardon me?

What did you say your name was?

Did you say…?

Can you repeat that?

Could you say that again, please?

What was that again?

Sorry. I didn’t catch that.

Could you speak up, please?

Could you speak a little louder?

 

Inviting:

Do you want to/wanna (very informal)

Would you like to…?

Will you… (with me)?

How would you like to…?

I was wondering if you would (like to)…

I would like to invite you to…(mor formal)

 

Asking for/giving directions:

Where is (the) …?

How do you get (the) … (from here)?

How do I get to (the)…?

Can you tell me how to get to (the) …?

Can you give me directions to (the) …?

What’s the best way to get to (the)…?

-          (First) Go down this street for two blocks.

-          (Then) Turn left at the traffic light.

-          (After that) Go straight on the street until you get to the main chowk.

-          (When you get to the main chowk), turn left again, this time into a narrow alley.

-          (Then), walk on the alley for about 50 metres.

-          It’s on your left, next to the English Language Institute. You can’t miss it!

 

Talking about travel:

How do you (usually) get to school?

-          I usually take the school bus.

How long does it take (to get there)?

-          It takes about 40 minutes.

What’s the best way to get to school?

-          By bus.

Do you walk or ride a bike?

 

Describing people or things:

What does your boss look like?

-          He’s slim, tall, and dark.

What else can you tell me?

-          Well, he has grey hair, and wears spectacles.

What is Hritesh like?

-          He’s funny, playful and very creative. He reminds me of comedian Manoj Gajurel.

Tell me about your new office.

-          Oh, it is really spacious and bright. It has an uninterrupted supply of electricity and water.

What did you think of the sales conference last week?

-          Well, it was productive. There were many great ideas, and many networking opportunities.

 

Comparing things:

Which book should we buy?

-          This one is interesting, but it is also expensive.

We also need a new TV.

-          The Sony is better than the Samsung. But it is less affordable

Which team are you cheering for?

-          Nepal. They are the new sensation in cricket. But Hong Kong is playing better this time.

I like the green T-shirt.

-          I think the red one is better. But the green one is the best.

How many pages should I write?

-          Only a couple of pages. Just around 800 words.

Is that too much sugar in your tea?

-          Just enough. I like only a little.

 

Expressing time:

Specific time:

When do you…?

-I usually/always… in the morning/at 10:00/on Saturdays/before lunch.

When did you…?

-          I … last night before dinner at 8:00/while I was reading.

 

When will you…/ when are you going to…/when do you plan to…/what time do you …?

-          I will…/I am going to…/I plan to… tomorrow/next Wednesday/in a few days/at 8:30/around 5:00

 

Extended time:

How long do you…/did you/will you/how does it take you to…?

-I (usually)…/I (past)…/I (future)…/It takes(me)….-from 8:00 to 10:00/for seven hours/a week/30 minutes

 

Frequency:

How often do you…?

-          I (present tense) … often/usually/always/never/once in a while.

 

On-going action:

How long have you…?

-          I have … for three years/for five months/since a week ago.

 

Using measuring words:

Personal items:

A ball of cotton

A bar of soap

A bottle of milk

A container of shampoo

A roll of toilet paper

A stick of deodorant

A tube of toothpaste

 

Stationery:

A bottle/tube of glue

A jar of paste

A pad of paper

A pair of scissors

A piece of paper

A roll of tape

A stick/piece of chalk

 

Sewing items:

A (square) foot/meter of fabric/cloth

A skein of yarn

A spool of thread

A yard/meter of ribbon

 

Food:

A bag of flour

A box of cereal

A carton of ice cream

A cube of ice

A dish of spaghetti

A head of lettuce/cabbage

A kernel of corn

A pack of gum

A pathi of wheat

A pound of meat/cheese

A spear of asparagus

An ear of corn

A bowl of rice

A can of soup

A clove of garlic

A dash of salt

A grain of wheat/salt

A jar of peanut butter

A loaf of bread

A package of pasta

A piece of cake/pie

A slice of bread/pizza

A theki of curd

 

Liquid:

A bottle of wine

A drop of rain

A glass of water

A jug of lemonade

A pint of blood

A shot of vodka

A tank of gas

A cup of coffee/tea

A gallon of punch

A half-gallon of juice

A keg of beer

A quart of milk

A tablespoon of vinegar

A teaspoon of medicine

 

Closing a conversation:

Before closing:

It’s been nice talking to you.

It’s been great talking with you.

I really enjoyed meeting you.

It was nice meeting you, Mr. Sharma.

I’m sorry, but I have to go now.

I’m afraid I have to leave now.

Thanks for the information/the tour/your time.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

 

Follow up:

I’ll give you a call.

I’ll send you an email.

I’ll put a packet in the mail for you.

We’ll send out that information right away.

I’ll have my secretary schedule an appointment.

Could you send me a brochure/some more information?

Could I contact you by email/at your office?

How do I get in touch with you?

How can I reach/contact you?

 

Closing:

I look forward to seeing you again.

We’ll see you on Friday.

See you next week.

Let me give you my business card.

Here’s my email/office number.

Let’s keep in touch by email.

We’ll be in touch.

Call me if you have any questions.

Email me.

 

Making appointments:

I’d like make an appointment with the CEO, Mr. Maharjan.

I’d like to schedule a meeting with Ms. Rana.

Could I schedule a time to meet with Mr. Kshetri.

-          What time is best for you?

-          When would be a good time for you?

-          Would 11:00 on Friday be okay?

-          He’ll be in on Monday.

-          His schedule is open all day Thursday.

-          She’s free any day but Tuesday.

-          Mr. Sharma will be away until Wednesday.

Will Mr. Regmi be in tomorrow?

Is he available next Monday?

Does he have any openings on Tuesday?

Does she have any time on Wednesday?

-          Sorry, his calendar is full tomorrow.

-          He will be out on Monday.

-          He doesn’t have time on Tuesday.

-          How about Thursday at 10:00?

Thursday at 10:00 will be fine.

Friday at 11:00 sounds good.

Okay. Tuesday morning at 9.

Monday at 8:00 is not good for me.

Friday is not possible.

 

Discussing agenda items:

Let’s start with…

Let’s start by…

The first item on the agenda is…

We need to discuss…

Let’s look at item number one.

Let’s move on to number two.

The next item on the agenda is…

What’s next on the agenda?

Does anyone have any comments?

Any comments?

Are there any comments on that?

What do you think?

Good idea.

Good point.

Does everyone agree on that?

 

Meetings and discussions:

Getting started:

Let’s get started.

We need to discuss…

We need to talk about…

Talking about discussion items:

The first thing we need to discuss is…

The first item on the agenda is…

The first thing on the list is…

First, we need to talk about…

Presenting options:

We have several alternatives:

We have two options:

We could either…or…

 

Moving on:

Let’s move on to the next item.

Let’s move on the next topic.

We need to move on.

The next item (of business) is…

We need to go on to the next item.

Shall/should we move on?

 

Stalling the discussion:

Before we move on, I think we should…

Wait a minute. We haven’t discussed…

Don’t you think we need to…?

Not so fast. We haven’t (yet)…

 

Asking for clarification:

What do you mean by…?

I don’t quite follow you.

I didn’t get what you meant by…

Could you clarify that?

Could you elaborate on that?

 

Making a suggestion/proposal:

I think we should…

Maybe we should…

I suggest…

Why don’t we…?

How about…?

We could…

 

Giving feedback:

(I think) that’s a good idea.

You have a good point.

Good idea/point.

I agree.

I disagree. I think…

Sorry. I don’t agree with you…

You have a good point, but…

That’s not such a good idea.

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

 

Asking for opinions;

What do you think, Seema?

What’s your opinion on that, Reema?

Any thoughts on that?

Any ideas?

 

Checking for consensus:

Do we all agree (on that)?

Does everyone agree?

 

Summarizing:

In summary,

The conclusion is…

So, we’ve decided to…

We’re going to…(then)

 

Closing the meeting:

That’s all for today.

That’s it then (informal)

The meeting is adjourned (very formal)

 

Analyzing problems:

Focusing on the main problem/issue:

What is the main problem?

What is the real issue (here)?

(I think) the major problem is…

Our primary concern is…

The crux of the matter is…

(As I see it), the most important thing is…

The main problem we need to solve is…

We really need to take care of…

It all comes down to this:

 

Asking for input:

What should we do about it?

What needs to be done?

What do you think we should do?

What are we going to do about it?

Do you have any suggestions?

Any ideas?

 

Making recommendations:

I recommend that…

I suggest that…

I would like to propose that…

Why don’t we…

 

Ways to Improve Business Vocabulary:

There are a number of ways available to help you increase your vocabulary. The important thing is that you should be motivated to learn new words. Otherwise it can be a boring or dull exercise.

 

The following tips could be useful be in improving your vocabulary:

·         Actively look for new and unfamiliar words:

Reading alone is not enough; we get carried away with the message and ignore new and unfamiliar words simply because we don’t understand them or find them uninteresting. Effective language users actively look for new words and phrases, guess what they stand for, then find out their meaning and know their appropriate use.

·         Use vocabulary building tools:

Many vocabulary-building tools are available in the market today, such as books, tapes, CDs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and business directories. These resources help not only in knowing the meanings, but also to understand the proper contexts of word use. Use resources that are appropriate for your reading level otherwise you may find them too difficult to understand or to simple. Carry a dictionary wherever you go. You may also download dictionary and thesaurus applications on your mobile phone. Remember, words can have more than one meaning, so read the entire entry for alternative meanings.

·         Read business-related literature:

Read topics related to business in newsletters, journals, magazines and newspapers. They carry business updates, interviews, and current information on many topics of interest to you. They will keep you abreast with the recent developments in the business environment and with the changing vocabulary. They expose you to a world of words, and prepare you for a more meaningful reading. Although good business-related publications for people with low vocabulary may still be lacking, Nepali market does offer specialized business magazines for people with mid-level or high vocabulary in English.

·         Watch business-oriented programs:

Radio and television programs that focus on business use current business words and phrases frequently. Important terminologies are often repeated. The conversational nature of language in these popular media allows the viewer or listener to grasp the vocabulary more easily than by reading. Moreover, depending on the expertise of the speakers, you may also be able to learn correct pronunciation and usage. These programs will not only help to update your knowledge on the current-business scenarios, but also to improve your vocabulary.

·         Play word games:

Crosswords, word puzzles, and word search games offer a fun way to learn new vocabulary. These engaging tools can be downloaded from the internet.

·         Practice:

Learning new words is important, but making a habit of using them correctly and properly is even more important. Vocabulary skills improve with actual practice. Try to use as many new words and phrases as possible in your conversations, presentations, and other business messages such as memos, letters and reports. The more you use them, the more you become confident in using them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business Communication Messages

Looking at the entire business communication process, we learned about the importance of defining the purpose of your message, selecting effective channels, adapting your message to your audience, communicating across cultures, planning, writing and revising, and outlying, formatting and designing your documents. We also identified the skills and ethical values that shape our messages. The chapter on language showed us how to write strong words and phrases, effective sentences and coherent paragraphs in order to make our messages effective and successful.

 

Before we focus on key individual messages that are routinely use in the workplace, let’s get an overview of the various types of messages in terms of the medium-written, oral, visual, electronic and non-verbal. The following sections offer a variety of examples of each medium:

 

Written:

Written messages are used mostly for formal purposes and when there is little time urgency. They are used when the ideas are rather complicated to convey and when you need to present facts. We also use written messages if we are not looking for immediate feedback from our intended audience and if we want to preserve the message for future reference or use. The following written messages are commonly used in business communication.

 

Memos:

A memo (memoranda) is a formal, typed paper note sent to a co-worker or a colleague within the same organization. It can be traced since you can keep a copy of the memo that you sent. A memo is usually very short and simple and is not suitable for sending long, complex and confidential information. In many organizations, employees are increasingly adopting email to send or receive memos.

For example:

Memo TO: All Staff FROM: Ravi Chitrakar, General Manager DATE: 9 September 2019 SUBJECT: Participation in upcoming book fair Our company will be participating in the Nepal Education & Book Fair 2019 from June 1 to 8 at Bhrikuti Mandap, Exhibition Hall, Kathmandu.   We will set up our stall on the early morning of June 1, and we will be involved in this big event in a big way this year.   Except for some staff in the sales department, everyone has been assigned specific tasks at the fair. They should report directly to our stall at Bhrikuti Mandap during the period of the fair.   Please review the attachment for your role in the Fair.   rc CC: Staff members ATTACHMENT: Book Fair tasks for individual staff

 

 

Informal notes:

Informal notes are a very quick way of sending an important piece of information to a colleague at the workplace. It can be left in a place easily seen by the recipient. However, informal notes may not be confidential, and may not always reach the intended audience. The handwriting may be illegible. So, extra care has to be taken over expression and handwriting.

 

Notices:

A notice is a piece of writing informing a large number of people about something. It may also announce events and issues or new developments in the organization. It is clear and direct form of communication usually placed in a prominent position within the workplace such as a notice board. Notices save time from having to send separate copies to many individuals. However, it is important to make sure that people are reading them.

 

Letters:

Letters are the most formal means of communication used to communicate sometimes with people within the organization and most often with people outside an organization. Internal letters may most often involve confidential or disciplinary issues. Unlike informal notes or notices, they are well-structured, and can convey several ideas or points clearly in writing. The sender can also keep a copy. Compared to telephone calls or personal meetings, letters can be cheaper to produce. They can also be made confidential. However, a letter may require a series of follow-up letters especially if the ideas have to be clarified and communicated well. The disadvantage is that letters may reach the destination very late or may not even reach the receiver.

 

Emails:

Emails are replacing letters or memos nowadays. They have become very common and also popular because they are free, fast, secure and confidential. They allow feedback quicker than in letters. Emails can be used for formal as well as informal purposes. The added advantage is that you can attach documents and photographs of various sizes. Emails can, however, be ignored by some recipients or they may just be deleted as spam mail.

 

Minutes:

Minutes are formal notes or records of business meetings, hearings, decisions made, or resolutions reached. They are also known as protocols. Minutes start with a list of people who were present at the meeting, followed by a statement of the issues considered by them, and their input or decisions made. Usually, a secretary takes the notes to prepare the minutes later.

 

Reports:

A report is an organized document that presents information about a business situation. It presents findings from an investigation or a review of a business issue, problem or trend. The types of report can vary depending on the details of presentation included in them. The information is usually presented in a narrative, graphic, or tabular form. Some reports may be just one page while others can be a hundred or more pages. A report is usually submitted by lower level employees or managers to upper-level executives.

 

Reports need to be objective, and they try to present accurate and full examination of a particular event or situation. It takes time and resources to prepare a report. Since a report is usually bulky, and it can be time-consuming for the audience to read through it. Sometimes oral presentations may use information from reports, but oral presentation cannot capture the depth and clarity of a written report.

 

Proposals:

A proposal is a plan or suggestion forwarded for consideration by someone. It is usually a formal, written document making an offer of a product or service to a potential client. Proposals can be solicited (submitted in response to a call for proposal) and unsolicited (submitted without being requested to do so).

 

Business plans:

Although sometimes a business plan is used interchangeably with a business proposal, a business plan is a document that spells out the formal statement of a set of business goals and how those goals would be achieved. It includes the strategies for progress. It is a written description of the future of a company’s business. Sometimes, when relevant and useful, proposals may use parts of a business plan.

 

Bulletin boards:

A bulletin board is a surface or place for posting public notices, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, advertisements, and announcements of events or new developments. They are often used in schools and universities and in many offices. Usually they are hung on the wall near the entrance of an office. They are made of wood, cork, or plastic. These days, internet forums serve as electronic notice boards.

 

Signboards:

A signboard is usually a large board fence that displays the name or logo of a business or product with visually attractive images and some written information. It is often displayed along highways, on buildings, or other visible locations. Alternatively, signboards are also referred to as billboards or hoarding boards.

 

Posters:

Posters are large printed notices, usually with a picture or photograph to advertise or announce something. They may also display charts, graphs, and illustrations. They are highly visual and are designed to be hung or attached to a wall.

 

Pamphlets:

A pamphlet is a small booklet or leaflet used for promotional purpose. It may provide information about a campaign, an organization’s values, or a new product. The document is usually unbound (without a cover) and in size, it can be simple, as a single, unfolded page (a flyer or a leaflet), half-folded page, or many pages such as information on safe driving, healthy eating, or passive smoking, usually printed in a leaflet or flyer. Flyers and leaflets are very basic, economic forms of pamphlets.

 

Brochures:

A brochure is a professional form of promotional material. Unlike pamphlet, flyer or leaflet, it is distinguished in design and format with the view to create a positive and lasting impression. A brochure introduces a company and its products or services. It is written concisely and in simple and straightforward language. It comes in various sizes and folds. It includes photos and graphics, and is usually attractively designed for visual appeal. Brochures serve as selling tools. They provide the most important information about a company in a nutshell. They can be distributed among many people; can be carried around, and kept for future use or reference.

 

Guidelines/Manuals:

Guidelines are documents that outline rules, regulations, principles, or pieces of advice. They explain a course of action or a procedure. When companies need to make the process of work uniform and efficient, they create guidelines for their employees, such as meeting guidelines, programming style guidelines, manufacturing guidelines, communication guidelines, social media guidelines etc. Organization can create internal manuals that include guidelines on certain topics or issues.

 

Instructions:

These are documents that explain in a process step-by-step, for example, how to use some product or service. Examples include owner’s manual, user guide, user manual and instructional manual or instruction guide. When you buy a packet of noodles, or a bottle of medicine, you will also bring with them some form or written instructions on how to cook the noodles, or how to use the medicine.

 

Questionnaires:

They are set of written questions with predetermined answer options. They are useful to conduct surveys or market research, to find out how consumers perceive a company’s products or services. Questionnaires can be used to systematically gather information from a large number of people, and their likes and dislikes. Data can be quickly analyzed and presented visually in graphs and charts. However, some people may not respond to questionnaires or simply find them difficult to complete. People may not be honest in their responses. Sometimes it is more effective to call people, talk to them in person, or write a letter.

 

SMS (Text messaging):

Short Message Service (SMS), a text messaging service available on mobile phones, is becoming very popular to send or receive many business messages these days. Most often, it is used for sending and receiving short, urgent messages. Text messages are informal. However, depending on the context, style and tone, they can also be formal. Text messages can be useful in marketing, for example, alerting customers about new sale prices, updating customers on airline flight status, package tracking, and appointment reminders. It can be used for crisis management. Employees working at a disaster scene can be updated with information. It can be used for security reasons such as authenticating mobile banking transactions. As SMS is integrated with Facebook Messages and Gmail, it is becoming even more useful.

 

Resumes:

A resume is a summary (usually one page) of a person’s employment, education, and skills or work experiences. It is used in applying for a job in any business. The British use the term CV (Curriculum Vitae, Vita) for resume. However, CV is detail document of profession affiliation at it is comparatively longer. Sometimes the term ‘resume letter’ is used to refer to both the cover (application) letter and a resume as one entirely.

 

Articles:

These are short or medium-length (700 to 1200 word) news articles, feature stores, opinion columns, advertorials (advertisement in the form of editorial content), interviews etc. for publication in newspapers, magazines or newsletters. They may cover a variety of topics. Since they are carried in mass media, they reach a wide range of audience.

 

Newsletters:

A newsletter is a periodic publication in the form of a bulletin for the internal audiences within an organization or a professional society. A newsletter is usually printed on letter-size paper. The newsletter carries company updates and news about employees, covers developments in products and services as well as the interesting trends in business outside the organization.

 

Press releases:

A press release is a form of news article released by a company to pass on a piece of important information to the mass media such as newspapers, radio, television and online news outlets. Since the company itself writes the release, information contained in the release is deemed to be accurate.

 

Print advertisements:

A print ad (short for advertisement) is a notice or announcement in a mass media outlet placed by a company to promote a product, service, or event. A print ad may also be used to publicize a job vacancy. Newspapers and magazines offer many examples of print ads. Print ads help to reach a large number of people at once; a print ad is an alternative to signboards, brochures, email advertisements, door-to-door marketing etc.

 

Oral:

Oral messages are used mostly for informal purposes and when there is time urgency. They are used when the ideas are simple to convey or easily explainable via speaking. They are effective in conveying emotions and feelings. Oral messages are also used when we are looking for immediate feedback from our intended audience and if we do not want the message to be necessarily permanent. The following oral messages are commonly used in business communication:

 

                Interviews:

                An interview is a face-to-face communication situation for various purposes. As interviewee (one who is being interviewed) faces an interviewer or a few interviewers, usually in a room. The interviewers are in full control of the situation; they do the asking and the probing to find out whatever they want to know about the interviewee. The interviewee is usually under pressure. He or she may not always be able to give the right answers. But both sides have the opportunity to see and feel each other up close.

               

Encounters:

An encounter is a situation in which you meet someone unexpectedly. Though flexible, communication in such a situation tends to be without control because it is not planned. Encounters are effective only for casual, routine or simple communication. Trying to communicate complex and sensitive information in an encounter can lead to failure, frustration, anger and even resentment.

 

Meetings of individuals:

Unlike an encounter, a meeting is more formal and it may even be planned. Meetings can be internal, involving co-workers and managers. They also often take place between members of different organizations, for example, the meeting of CEOs of two companies along with their subordinate officers. Meetings offer the opportunity for participants to express their views, and possibly contribute to making decisions or solving problems. Records of a meeting can be maintained in the form of a letter or a brief report.

 

Briefing meetings:

A briefing meeting is a communication situation, often in the beginning of the workday, in which a senior business officer gives instructions or preparatory information to his or her staff. Such a meeting covers developments within the company, specifies the tasks for staff members, and conveys them the set targets for the day. A briefing meeting is more informal than formal.

They take place almost every day in organization. Managers don’t have to meet each individual worker to share their information. Briefings enable to convey exactly the same message to everyone. Staff members can ask questions for clarifications. Briefings, however, can be stressful for pressure of time, and they leave no written record for future reference.

 

Full staff meetings:

Full staff meetings are usually planned ahead with clear agenda items, and they are formal. The meeting is chaired by a person who makes sure that participants get the opportunity to express their opinions. Such meetings usually focus on pressing issues or problems with the intention to find a resolution through group discussion. They require strong interpersonal and listening skills, and team spirit. Formal meetings can be time-consuming and not everyone is comfortable to speak their opinions openly. Written records of staff meetings are maintained by taking notes or minutes, usually by a secretary.

 

Formal, public speaking:

This involves a speaker talking to a group of people in a formal setting. Traditionally, as an authoritative way of communication, public speaking involved long lecture-type speeches in front of a passive audience. Increasingly, speakers are more structured and focused on a topic, and even try to energize the audience by asking questions. Unlike written reports, public speaking can be conversational and it offers the opportunity to highlight key points, and repeat important information. It is immediate, and the audience receive information simultaneously. However, it is not effective to convey complex data. To help better understand the speech, some speakers provide written version of their speech or a handout.

 

Oral report or presentation:

An oral report or presentation is usually an oral version of a written report. The report begins with an introduction, often an anecdote, a proverb, personal experience, an interesting fact, or a question directly related with the topic. This is followed by a focus on factual business information, interpretation or analysis. Depending on reporting situations, oral reports can be very informal like in routine conversations, or highly formal like in a structured public presentation. Visual aids like overhead slides, or projectors are often used in oral presentations. Usually, questions are welcome at the end of the presentation making the event more interactive and participatory.

 

Press conferences:

A press conference is a meeting in which journalists or news media professionals are invited for an interaction. It may begin with the reading of a statement. A company often uses a press conference to make an important announcement, such as the launch of a new product or service, merger of the company with another competitor. Sometimes, a press conference is held to clarify things, especially if the company is mired in a controversy. Journalists ask questions and usually a prominent person from the company or organization answers their questions. A press conference is effective in conveying a message directly to the media. However, journalists may ask a lot of questions, some of which can be embarrassing or difficult to answer.

 

Telephone calls:

Many business messages can be directly conveyed via the telephone. Businesses can directly call customers to share news or updates on issues of their interest, and for follow-ups. They can also do telemarketing to reach potential customers, or conduct telephone surveys to identify their customers’ preferences, or gauge their perceptions. Telephone calls are quick and immediate, and they also provide instant feedback. Although voice or tone can be inferred, telephone calls do not allow for body language, and the call can also be distorted due to technical reasons.

 

Skype:

Skype can be used to talk to another person via a computer, for free. In that, it is like making telephone call. It can also be used to call a telephone from your computer, for a charge. With a webcam on your computer, you can also use Skype for videoconferencing with more than two people. A computer, a webcam and internet access is just what you need to use Skype. One of the main issues with Skype is poor signal or distortion.

 

Teleconferencing and videoconferencing:

These are conferences over telephone or video. They usually involve more than two people, physically at some distance from each other. Participants just need to connect to a device to be together. While teleconference allows for only the voice to be spoken and heard, a videoconference provides one more advantage-it uses a camera so participants can see each other. These methods of communication help save time, and resources spent on travel. Skype has made these types of conferencing easier and also cheaper today. However, poor signals, and technical problems can be annoying. Apart from Skype, other tools like Zoom, Facebook Video Call are also available for videoconferencing.

 

Visual messages:

Visual messages can be written or oral, and nonverbal. They reinforce written communication and are effective in engaging the audience. Remember the saying: ‘a picture is worth a thousand word’. Visuals help to present the most important information in a condensed and concise form. They have stronger impact on the minds of audience. We use them for immediacy, to emphasize important points, to bring data, location and even idea to life in dynamic ways. They are used to show things, not just tell about them, and to convey complicated information. They are effective in illustrating how things work, in conveying change over time, and in making comparisons. They are simple to follow, such as in directions and instructions. They are flexible in reaching across demographics, cultures and geographic boundaries. They can be kept permanent, and depending on the communication situation, they may enable immediate feedback. The following are some key visual messages used in business communication”

 

Signs, Signals and Symbols:

 

Signs:

A sign tends to have a single meaning. It is a part of the human world of meaning and largely depends on culture. There are three types of signs:

 

Symbolic signs are those signs that have no obvious connection between the sign and the object it refers to. For example, the word APPLE is not identical with its referent, the round, juicy fruit.

 

Iconic signs have a visual likeness to the think they represent, such as the icons of a home, an envelope, a door, a lock, a pair of scissors, a cross sign (X), traffic signs showing people crossing the road etc. Icons are not elaborate and they focus on a single idea of the object or the action. More examples: a picture of skull with crossed bones (no smoking), male or female images on toilet or restroom doors, a picture of explosion (explosive device), electric wire and current (electric shock) etc. Many traffic signs can also be considered icons. In computers, icons are used to depict various applications.

Indexical signs show some kind of direct connection to the real thing, such as a burning torch, dark clouds, smoke, a tear running down someone’s cheek etc. A five-story pagoda in an old city skyline offers an indexical reference to Bhaktapur, and the eyes of Swayambhunath to Kathmandu. Signs also may include finger, hand and gestural signs.

 

Signals:

Unlike signs, which are mostly static, signals are dynamic and show movement or action. They may include gestures and sounds. However, for a successful communication, there must be a prior agreement between the sender and receiver on what a particular signal stands for. For example, a man giving a flower to a woman signals his love for her. A traffic police officer pointing to the left signals drivers to turn left. A man raising his hands in the middle of a conversation signals that he has something to say.

 

Symbols:

A symbol is something that represents or stands for something else, usually an abstract idea. Sometimes the word symbol and sign are used interchangeably. However, unlike signs and signals, symbols can have multiple meanings. Thus, they can be ambiguous and varied, according to cultures. A symbol has to be visible, and its meaning should be agreeable to the people who are in communication. The simplest forms of symbols are pictograms in which a concept or object is represented as it is. Ideograms tend to be slightly abstract, like the shape of a heart that represents love, a pigeon that represents peace, or a white flag that represents surrender. Arbitrary symbols have no obvious visual connections to the idea or object they represent; they are abstract. Our non-quadrilateral national flag is a symbol of sovereignty and peace, and harmony. However, the flag itself is not those ideas. Other examples include two crossed bones and human skull placed in between (danger) and a lighted cigarette with cross mark on it (no smoking).

Colors:

Colors can be used for symbolism, for example, blue means peace, green stands for environmentally friendly, and red refers to power. Maps use various colors to help quickly spot a location. Colors are also used to give structure to an object, to highlight certain things, to enhance meaning, to show association between things and to convey certain mood. Too much use of color, however, can become very distracting.

Nonverbal Visual Cues:

Our body language, such as facial expressions, eye movements, postures, and gestures are a form of visual communication. The way we appear, dress, touch others, and use physical space in relation with others helps communicate specific meanings to a viewer.

Typography:

Typography is the visual display of printed matter. It is the art of arranging type on paper or screen. It may include regular fonts, calligraphy, and increasingly digital type, type designing and even graphic designing. Designers usually choose between two types of typefaces (fonts); serif and sans-serif. A slight projection (feet) on the endpoints of a font is called serif, and any font that belongs to a class of typefaces with such a projection is also known as serif. Serif fonts, because they are distinctive with the projections, are easier to read on paper.

 

Drawings, Diagrams and Illustrations:

 

Line Drawing:

Line drawing also called line art, it is the drawing or representation of things such as electronic or technical equipment, human body, animals, plants, furniture etc. Line art is usually done in black and white and it illustrates key components or parts of objects.

Diagram:

A diagram is a form of line art. It is a simplified drawing that illustrates the appearance, structure, or workings of something, for example, a diagram of a solar powered microwave oven, a living room, or a radio circuit. Diagrams show component parts of a thing, and the logical relationships between those parts. Diagrams are often used in technical communication documents. Because they are simple forms of schematics, they help bridge the gap of knowledge between experts and laypersons. To avoid distortions during use (such as photocopying or faxing), draw diagrams in black and white. You can also use computer-based programs to create diagrams.

Cartoons:

A cartoon is a simple drawing that shows features of people or things in a humorously exaggerated way. It is a caricature highlighting the peculiarities of things and can be satirical also. Cartoons are often published in newspapers or magazines but they can also be used in other types of publications or messages. Cartoon movies are electronic versions of cartoon pictures in a narrative format.

Schematics:

They are a form of line art or a diagram, but are more formal, sophisticated and used for highly specialized and technical documents, often in the area of electrical or mechanical engineering, architecture, geology, or environment science. They follow the standards and rules of the discipline or the profession and are accompanied by abbreviations and symbols on abstract information known to experts. It takes some good amount of experience and expertise to be able to draw schematics.

Photographs:

A photograph is effective in showing precisely the external surface of objects as they are. Today, camera with quality functions can be bought with little cost. Taking pictures has become easy and quick for many people. But to produce better pictures, one should plan ahead, consider viewers’ needs, know the subject matter and equipment, and colors, and use proper angles, frames and depth. Selective use of photos is effective. Use photos to illustrate something meaningful, something that adds to the meaning of a message rather than merely for decoration.

Maps:

Maps are effective in showing geographic locations or directions. Maps help to show countries, regions, districts, cities, highways, rivers, mountains, lakes etc. Political maps highlight boundaries of nations, or states, their capitals etc. Geologic maps depict the terrain, elevation, climates, and other surface features. Maps can be simple with basic outlines or more detailed with political or geologic features, direction orientation (indicated by a north-pointing star), distance scale, legends, and relevant descriptions.

 

Graphics:

 

Tables:

They comprise of rows and columns, mainly with numbers and some words. They help to compare diverse information quickly and easily, to show exact figures and values. Each column contains a heading under which relevant units of measurement are placed. Use a simplified table with main data to illustrate your point; do not include too many rows and columns, if possible. Row headings, usually on the left column, identify the contents placed in the rows. Each table should be numbered, according to its order in the chapter or the document. It should have a title.

 

 

Bar graphs and charts:

A bar graph is a graphical depiction of data by means of vertical (with Y axis) or horizontal bars (with X axis). It is effective in comparing one item with others, in showing the relative value of two or more items. You can use various colors or shades, and even in black and white, you can fill in various patterns to emphasize the difference. You can create bar graphs with the help of word processors, Microsoft Project, or Microsoft Excel.

Pie charts:

These are shaped like a pie. This type of chart is simple in design and effective in illustrating proportions of the parts of a whole. It is also suitable to reach general readers or users. Avoid cluttering the pie. Make sure the labels and percentages are clearly written and that there are no more than five or six slices within a pie.

Flowcharts:

Flowcharts are effective in showing the stages of a process or a procedure. They are also useful to provide instructions in a concise way. Many processes, such as how a product is processed or how marketing managers delegate work to marketing representatives can be illustrated with flowcharts.

Organizational charts:

An organizational chart depicts the system of organization within an institution in terms of levels and departments, and their relationships. It shows the lines of authority and responsibility in an organization. An organization chart is often used to show the hierarchy in an institution, often with the president of a company at the top. Alternatively, an organization chart can also show the functional divisions of a system, such as the human nervous system.

Information graphics:

An info-graphic is a data-rich visualization of information or ideas. It can illustrate patterns and trends, and present complex information in a way that can be understood quickly and clearly. Info-graphics have no rigid format, all you need is creativity and a commitment to ensure accuracy of the information presented in it. A variety of technological tools and software devices are available today to aid you in creating info-graphics.

 

Visuals in the Multimedia:

Visual communication has become very ubiquitous and powerful today at multiple levels and platforms. Video clips, animations, motion pictures, computer displays and screens are some examples. We see a rich variety of images and colors and designs on computer screens, movie screens, television screens, and mobile phone screens. Websites and their pages are full of visuals that integrate multi-media elements. If you press CTRL and PRINTSCR on the keyboard on your personal computer, you can copy the screen image. It can be then pasted on a word document or an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop.

 

Electronic Messages:

Electronic messages can be written; oral and even nonverbal and they all share many of the same characteristics. For the same reasons, they have added benefits compared to the other types. The audience, especially with visual or auditory impairment, have the option to choose their preferred medium in electronic communication messages. Electronic messages are instantaneous in delivery and they help save our valuable time. Accessing information is quick and easy because many electronic media are search-enabled. Messages can be stored temporarily or permanently in discs, tapes or servers. They also help to save our money from being spent on paper, ink, printing and postage. They help overcome time and space barriers, and we can work from home or anywhere, anytime. Moreover, many forms of electronic messages are interactive, enabling continuous interaction and feedback. Examples of electronic messages that are commonly used in business communication are given below:

Emails:

Emails have become the commonest form of communication inside and outside of an organization. For details, see under the sub-section ‘written messages’ above.

Telephone calls:

Telephone, the oldest type of communication technology still in regular use, has evolved today into a sophisticated machine. Telephone is effective for urgent, instant messages. With the advent of mobile phone, communication has become extremely convenient. Business people remain in touch anytime and anywhere.

Fax messages:

A facsimile message is a document sent via a device that transmits an exact copy of a document (text, pictures, graphics, etc.) via a telephone line. The fax machine scans the document as it goes through and an exact copy is transmitted immediately to the fax machine on the other end of the line. Today, email attachments have replaced much of the work of fax machines. Yet, for signed or actual paper documents, it is still useful. However, fax copies may be distorted, or may not remain confidential.

Online chats:

An online chat is the type of real-time communication over the internet between members in a group. Many small businesses find online chats useful in communicating with their clients, partners and suppliers. People can participate simultaneously with the option to ask questions, respond, clarify and probe further. They offer a sense of immediacy and collaboration, and help to work with people spread out across the country or the world. Chats can help replace extra telephone lines, and reduce long distance calls. They are easy to use, and offer the opportunity to learn from others.

Internet forums:

An internet forum is an online discussion site (message board or discussion board) where people can interact with others in the form of posted messages. Much like ‘newsgroup’, the original internet discussion groups, it offers a common space to ask and answer questions. It can be useful for businesses to discuss products or services, get feedback from clients and potential clients, or solve problems. Companies can outsource some of their customer on the forum. Your approach of communication here may partly depend on whether the forum is anonymous or transparent, whether it is open or requires registration. Choose the type of forum that works best for you.

Social media posts:

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. provide an effective way to communicate business information. They help communicators to collaborate by allowing them to share information, revise it, respond to it, or contribute new content. The approach is conversational, so be open and ready to interact with the other party. Get involved, and don’t run away from criticism. Be honest and transparent. Some social media posts, such as on YouTube can be live-streamed. It can be effective to promote your company events, such as product launches or anniversaries. Social media messages are typically informal, concise, specific and informative. Social media are like offline social interactions. Any marketing or promotional efforts should be indirect. Avoid blatant advertising.

Websites:

A website is the location of a company or an individual on the internet. Many companies already have websites. Websites are the most important tools to connect your company to your customers and the world at large. A website can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world. An attractively designed website with all the information on a company’s vision and mission as well as its products and services are powerful advertising tools. Some websites are created in a way to conduct e-commerce (electronic commerce). Products can also be directly sold from them. Because the owner can update websites, and he or she can publish anything of importance, it can save money spent on advertising in the mass media.

Blogs:

Blogs are online journals that can be easier to customize and update than websites. You can post interesting and important updates about business issues on blogs. They have become very popular in recent years for a number of reasons, mainly because blogs deliver interesting and useful information, and they do it quickly. They are also highly interactive and audience members can join in the conversation and post comments. Individual bloggers offer personal and often intimate voice in contrast to the impersonal corporate voice predominant in popular business communication. Audience tend to develop closer emotional bonds with bloggers because they offer something fresh.

Microblogs:

A microblog is a miniature form of a blog in which messages are restricted to a couple of hundred characters (letters, not words). Twitter is the most popular example. It restricts messages to (14) characters. Messages may be composed differently due to space constraint but the principles of blogs apply on microblogs also. Microblogs are useful to write short summaries, and to provide links to other content online.  One must be careful in microblogging since every post is permanently archived on the internet.

Podcasts and vodcasts:

These are audio (podcast) or video (vodcast) posts online distributed via RSS subscriptions. They help to make content richer, and also appeal to the audience’s auditory and visual senses. Podcasts can be downloaded and audience can listen to them even while they are doing something else. These channels are effective in giving consumers previews of products, services and other activities. Any other promotional materials can also be carried in podcasts and vodcasts. Depending on the needs, these could be in a variety of formats, such as news bulletins, interactions, interviews, etc.

Video conferences:

These offer advantage over traditional face-to-face conferences by cutting travel costs, re-enforcing relationships and enhancing collaboration. For more, see teleconferences and videoconferences under the sub-section ‘Oral messages.’

Webinars:

A webinar is a seminar, only that it takes place over the internet. It serves a platform for online participation and discussion. Webinars are useful to build business contacts, promote a product or service, maintain close communication with customers, add value to business, etc. They also help save money on conference and seminar related expenses.

Skype:

Skype is effective in keeping touch with customers, partners or colleagues. It can also be used for teleconferences or videoconferences. Moreover, it helps to keep costs at the minimum.

 

Nonverbal messages:

Words alone are not enough to convey realities. Nonverbal messages express inner feelings. They are effective for short and brief communication. Although they cannot be used as tools for public communication, they help convey subtle messages, reinforcing what was said before, and demonstrate confidence, enthusiasm and professionalism in the way we communicate nonverbally. They offer several advantages that are unique to them. They can be used to communicate with people who may not understand your language. You can communicate nonverbally if you don’t want others to hear you. Even in silence, you can communicate through gestures, facial expressions or other cues. With signs, you can communicate with people far away from you or even with hearing impaired people. Most importantly, they are useful to convey feelings, form relationships, express experiences and realities of everyday life and deeper cultural traits. Some examples of the common nonverbal messages include the following:

Physical appearance:

The first thing people notice when you meet them is your appearance. Your look, height, weight, facial features tell much about you nonverbally. It is often believed that physically attractive people look more professional, more desirable than less attractive people. Compared to others, they may also perform better in their jobs and get better pays and promotions. However, physical attractiveness can be culturally determined. For example, people in one culture may consider a thin person less competent and less authoritative than a person with some weight whilst the same person may be considered healthy and attractive in another culture. Similar could be the case with a petite and a tall man.

Our clothes and dresses, our choice or colors and hairstyle also tell a lot about our interest, age, personality, taste and sex. Many companies require their employees to dress in professional manner and some even provide them with company uniforms to convey a uniform and credible image of the company. Others maintain a formal dress code for the company. Professional dress is often associated with a status, experience, authority, and influence. Small organizations may have flexible dress codes where you can wear T-shirts of shorts, but in larger organizations, they may require you to always appear in formal dresses and to look neat and well-groomed.

The ornaments we wear also communicate about us. Hats, hairpieces, scarves, eyeglasses, sunglasses, jewelry or body piercing, handbags, briefcases and even tattoos can be culture-specific. It’s important to know what is acceptable and desirable in the workplace. For example, nose piercing may be regarded undesirable in many Western workplaces, but in Nepal, it is a normal cultural practice for women.

Tone of voice:

Sometimes how something is said tells more about a person than what is said by the person. The pitch of voice (how high or low the voice is), volume of voice (how loudly he or she speaks), rate of voice (how fast) are part of a person’s vocalic or paralanguage. What type of vocalic is acceptable or desirable depends on the situation. A high pitch may be desirable in some cultures and contexts. For example, it is generally considered socially attractive, powerful, knowledgeable and trustworthy in America to speak aloud and fast. In Japan, it is generally considered impolite and rude. In most situations, altering vocalic cues may be considered desirable than using the same monotonous and flat vocalic.

Body language:

Body language, also known as kinesics, is the study of gestures and movements of the body. Gestures (visible bodily actions like movement of the hands, face, eyes, head or other parts of the body) help to communicate particular messages. For example, placing an index finger on the lips (keep quite sign), holding up two fingers during a presentation by the facilitator (signaling that you have two minutes remaining), using two hands to for a T (time-out), and raising a palm (do not disturb sign). Other examples include nodding to indicate you agree, saying “um”, “uh-huh” (in Nepal, “anh”) to signal that we are following someone speak, using hands to illustrate something figuratively, etc. Body language also includes postures, the position in which a person holds the body when standing or sitting. Direct orientation shows positive attitude. People tend to be more relaxed in posture while talking to friends or those with lower status.

Facial expression, eye contact, etc.:

Your face and eyes reveal much about who you and your emotions and feelings. They both reveal our happiness, sadness, anger, irritation, frustrations, embarrassment, and many other complex emotions. These are communicated with a smile, a blush, a leer, a blink, a smirk, a grin, a wink, a frown, etc. Studies have shown that people who smile more are generally considered to be more intelligent than people who smile less. That is one reason why many companies prefer to recruit marketing and sales staff with a smile. Direct eye contact is associated with persuasiveness, calmness, confidence, and credibility. In high stress jobs like customer services, employees are required to control or hide their negative feelings. This involves controlling the facial muscles.

Use of space:

The space and distance (called proximity) you maintain from others in your communication with them can tell something about who you are and how you feel. The study of this phenomenon is called proxemics. Keeping yourself just close enough to a person you are speaking communicates something about you while keeping too close or too far away from the person communicates something else. In Western cultures, distinction is generally made between four types of spaces. Intimate space (from 0 to 1 ½ feet from a person) is only for someone whom the person is well acquainted with. The person feels violated if someone invades that space. However, this does not apply in overcrowded places like theatre hallway or an elevator. Others include personal space (extends from 1 ½ to 4 feet from a person) for conversations with family and friends, social space (4 to 12 feet from a person) for formal group interactions and professional relationships, and public space (starts at 12 feet from a person) used by the speakers making a public speech or presentation. It is not clear yet what specific and culturally defined standards of proximity we follow in Nepal, but most traditional societies communicate at a closer distance. It will help to pay attention to the body language of the person you are speaking to and adjust your distance that is comfortable to both of you.

Touch:

The study of how we touch someone (haptics) is closely related to our use of space. Some people use a lot of touches to communicate with others, such as hugging, putting their arms around others, patting on the shoulders or back, making repeated or vigorous handshakes, etc. Some people try to avoid touching others, not necessarily because they are shy but because they don’t like it. Touching can be cultural norm. For example, it is common in our culture for elderly people to touch the forehead of their younger relatives. Similarly, young people touch the feet of elderly relatives. In the Middle East and Europe, men kiss each other on the cheek as a way of greeting. In most situations, it will be prudent to limit the touch to socially acceptable forms such as handshake.

Use of time:

Have you heard the term “Nepali time”? It is a derogatory term, meaning that Nepalis generally make inefficient use of time and are not punctual. However, for many people in other cultures, “time is money”. The study of how people use time (called chronemics), reveals a lot about how our use of time communicates many things about us. In modern workplaces, people who arrive on time, who meet deadlines, finish their work on time, or leave work on time are perceived positively. Effective and precise use of time can be productive for business and it can also lead to better pay and promotions.

Physical environment:

Physical environment such as the layout of a room, seating positions and arrangements also determines communication. The objects in an office room or the objects the occupant of that room brings in there may affect communication positively or negatively. A well organized, decorated, clean room communicates differently than a disorganized, undecorated and dirty room. Communicating in a clean and organized room is likely to be more productive and pleasant than in the other room. Proper lighting, colors, decoration, furnishing of a place could affect the way we communicate in a physical environment. In addition, workplaces have distinct professional physical environments. The large and well-furnished office rooms of powerful executives or managers differ from the small offices or cubicles or low status staff. Each space is associated with certain way of communicating.

In addition, nonverbal messages may also include signs and symbols as well as charts, graphs and pictures discussed above under the section “visual messages.”

 

 

Brochures, Instructions and Guidelines

Brochures:

A brochure is a small printed piece of paper, usually made from a single sheet. It is a promotional material, a tool of advertisement for a company. It is used to introduce a company or organization and inform about its products and/or services to a target audience. It is designed professionally, and often with attractive layout and pictures. Written concisely and in simple language, it provides the most important information about a company in a nutshell.

Use of brochures:

They help in introducing your company. They are useful in explaining your firm’s purpose, goods and services. A brochure lays out the basic facts about your organization such its mission, its services, its historical background or origin, its leadership or team, and its contact details. It can supplement your presentation on your organization and your meetings or interviews with potential customers and investors. If you need to make a call to action, for example, volunteering or contributing to a fund, brochures can be used specifying how people can contact you, whom they can contact and when, or how exactly they can get involved.

Similarly, brochures are effective tools to announce a specific program or event, or to inform and educate people about such an event. Events can be an exhibition, a fair, a music festival, or a spelling competition. Brochures describe specifics about such events: where it is held, where to buy tickets, how much to pay, whom to contact for more information, etc.

Another purpose of a brochure is to provide answers to all possible common questions regarding your product or business. These are called the frequently asked questions (FAQs). It is wise and more efficient to prepare answers in advance for certain questions that people repeatedly ask, such as “what services do you offer?”, “how do I qualify to receive your services?”, “how much do you charge in monthly fees?”, etc.

Another common purpose of brochures is to instruct people on certain procedures, or steps. Highly technical works and health topics require precise instructions. Brochures on assembling furniture, on handling a camera, or on fighting HIV/AIDS, or EBOLA VIRUS, or DENGUE are some such examples.

Thus, brochures are used for a wide variety of reasons. They are a flexible medium to convey your organizational message to a targeted audience. They are useful in sending direct mail to targeted people. You can also attach them to letters, memos, proposals or reports. You can insert them in media kits or presentation folders. You can leave them on display at easily accessible locations where great numbers of customers are likely to gather. You may also leave them behind with clients that you have just visited so they can find the details when they need them to make their decisions. Brochures are also made to distribute in gatherings, fairs, workshops, conferences, seminars or classes, and meetings, or to give to prospective customers, volunteers and even employees.

Target your brochures to a specific group or the general audience, depending on your needs and purpose. Examples of groups may include potential clients, supporters, funders, the media, clients, volunteers, contributors, and the members of the general public.

Brochure format:

Layout:

 

Because they come in a variety of sizes, brochures widely differ in the types of topics they cover and their purposes. Still, they all share some basic elements. As the standard brochure used in many organizations, the tri-folded undoubtedly offers the general format applicable to most brochures.

Layout1:

 

Guidelines and Instructions:

As we saw above, a brochure, besides being a promotional tool, can also sometimes serve as a tool to convey instructional materials. But guidelines, manuals and instructions, which cover an increasingly expanding area of business communication, use a variety of other formats, ranging from flyers, leaflets, booklets to large documents. It is the purpose and the approach that makes them a distinct from of business communication. There are several terms used to indicate guidelines and instructions, and they are often used interchangeably. It is useful to clarify these terms before we focus on guidelines and instructions. Here are the meanings for the following key terms from the Merriam-Webster dictionary and other sources:

·         Guide: Something that provides a person with guiding information; a book, pamphlet, etc., giving information, instructions, or advice; a handbook, a guidebook (a book of directions, advice, and information, especially for travelers or tourist). Example: The book on painting was a great guide to me.

·         Guideline: A line by which one is guided: as a rule or instruction that shows or tells how something should be done-usually used in the plural form “guidelines”. Examples: The government has issued new guidelines for following a healthy and balanced diet. The public called for stricter guidelines on food safety. Here are some basic guidelines for helping you choose a dishwasher.

·         Manual: A small book, especially one giving information or instructions; a reference manual, a book that is conveniently handled; especially an instruction manual. The word is derived from the Latin “Manus” or hands, implying the operation of something by hands. Example, Here’s the owner’s manual of your new car. The computer program comes with a user’s manual. We lost the instruction manual and couldn’t put our bikes together. Please refer to the training manual, if you have any questions about your job. Is your car a manual or an automatic?

·         Instruction: The action of instructing or teaching; the imparting of knowledge or skill; education’ information; orders or directions. Example: The instruction books generally gave good information for setting up and using the machines.

·         Primer: A small introductory book on any subject. Something that serves as a first means of instruction.

·         Vade mecum: A pocket manual, handbook, Latin for “go with me”.

Clearly, the key words manual, guide, and instruction have several overlaps and some extent they have been used interchangeably. On a closer look, we can say that a manual is the most comprehensive document with detailed information about the operation and maintenance of a product.

 

Writing User Manuals and Guides:

Tips:

 

Writing Instructions:

Instructions share several of the elements of good manual or guidelines writing. However, manuals are usually very long, sometimes exceeding hundreds of pages. Naturally, they include many components that instructions omit simply due to lack of space. Instructions are to manuals just as business memo proposals are to business proposals. Instructions are for carrying out a procedure or performing a task. They are usually written in active voice, organized in numbered lists in a logical sequence. The mostly use the second-person point of view, such as you, your, yours, directly addressing the reader. Text is often supplemented by images, graphics, and other illustrations. The difference between manuals and instructions is often in the size of the document and the degree of formality than the substance in the document.

The following are the contents of the instructions:

Title:

The title tells the reader what the purpose of the instruction is. The title is usually centered on the top of the page.

Introduction:

Your instructions may often have more than on purpose. Begin by providing an overview of the task laid out by the instructions. Explain a process, or encourage the reader to read and follow the instructions. What you will include in the introduction depends largely on the nature of your subject and the characteristics of your audience.

Definitions:

Know the level of vocabulary of your intended audience. Unless you are absolutely sure that the audience does not understand a technical term, you are using, don’t use it without defining it clearly. The definition should immediately be given after the first use of the term.

Preparations:

Some tasks, like getting a baby asleep, would require a dim room, and keeping the room temperature between …

Warning and precautions:

It is your responsibility that the tasks are done safely.

Steps:

This is the main part of the instructions and may be the longest section too. List the steps according to the order in which they are to be carried out.

Closing:

Some instructions use closing, which is kept brief. Here you will tell the audience how they can make sure that they followed the instructions correctly and successfully.

 

 

Media Stories, Releases and Advertising:

Apart from the internal memos, reports, proposals, brochures, instructions and other routine messages that are written for specific internal or external audiences, part of the business communication also involves writing content for a wider audience. The content may be used in newsletters or mass media channels such as newspapers, magazines, radio or television, and the internet. Typically, this type of communication is considered the domain of public relations, one of the specific areas of business communication. Public relations involves the management of relationship between a company and its customers, or the general public with the aim to maintain a positive image of the company.

In this chapter, we focus on writing media stories, news releases and advertisement materials. Because these types of content are often intended for a diverse and wider audience, business communicators working on them generally adopt the style or approach of journalists.

 

Media Stories:

Newspapers, magazines, radio or television reports routinely carry news and feature stories that focus on business topics. Your own firm’s newsletter, email newsletter or website may feature such stories to inform your customers, shareholders or the general public about important developments within your company.

News Reports:

News reports, as the phrase implies, are newsworthy pieces of contents that inform readers of what is happening regarding the works of an organization. Typically, they are about things and events happening right now or only a few hours or days ago. They are highly factual, without any opinion of the writer. A distinguishing feature of news reports is that they follow a specific structure.

The Five “W”s and the “H”: This is the crux of all the news-you need to know five things: Who? What? Where? When? Why and How?

Any good news story provides answers to each of these questions. Ask each of these questions as you gather the information or as you write. For example, if you wish to cover a story about a local business, such as a new development or an event, you will need to answer these questions:

·         Who is involved in the development? Who is the main actor? Who else is involved? Who is responsible for the development or event? Did anybody related with the development say anything?

·         What is the development or event about? What happened there? What else is related to the development?

·         Where did it happen? Where are the main actors from?

·         When did it happen or going to happen? How long have the organizers been working on the development or the event? Are there any other important time factors?

·         Why did they do it or are doing it?

·         How did they do it? How did the speaker say the things he or she said? How much preparation work was required for the development or the event?

 

The Inverted Pyramid:

This refers to the style of journalism that places the most important facts at the beginning and works “down” from there. Ideally, the first paragraph (called the lead/led) should contain enough information to give the reader a good overview of the entire story. The lead actually tries to answer all the Five “W”s and “H” questions succinctly. The rest of the article explains the beginning and expands on it.

 Some useful tips:

The following tips can be useful in writing various types of news reports:

·         It’s about people, power and money: News stories are all about how people or the general public is affected. Since journalism is also a business, important people, power or politics and money or business are the most important news topics on a regular basis. In your business development or event story, you might spend some time focusing on one or more individuals, or on how the organizers and the speaker perform in their tasks.

·         Have an angle: Most stories can be presented using a particular angle or “slant”. This is a standard technique and isn’t necessarily bad-it can help make the purpose of the story clear and give it a focus. Examples of angles you could use for your business story: “Business leader predicts double digit growth in economy,” or “Consumer confidence is buoyant for Dashain”.

·         Keep it objective, fair and balanced: News stories are always factual accounts, and unlike in essays or other writings, they should not include the views or opinions of the reporter. Don’t use “I” and “me” unless you are quoting someone. Opinion, which comes in the form of quotes by your sources, should also be balanced, meaning that you have to make sure to quote people who have different views on the event or issues you are reporting about. You have to be completely impartial.

·         Quote people: Quote what the speaker says, or what people tell you as part of their reaction to the story, or for example, inverted commas. Example: “The production of seasonal vegetables is high now,” he said, “this is the major reason behind the fall in prices.”

·         Keep it simple and informative: News is about informing what exactly happened, delivered in the way the audience can grasp it easily and quickly. So, keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Don’t use flowery or heavily descriptive language. When you’ve finished, go through the entire story and try to remove any words which aren’t completely necessary. Also verify the facts and check the spellings of people’s names, places, etc.

 

Articles and Stories:

Articles or stories are other forms of write-ups. They are written for a wide audience, so it is essential to attract and retain the readers’ attention. They share some of the elements of a news report, but they can be timeless, covering topics of general interest and issues. Newspapers and magazines carry a wide variety of articles. They include amusing stories, reported speech and descriptions. They can be formal or informal, depending on the target audience, are written in an interesting or entertaining manner, and may give opinions or thoughts as well as facts.

An article may describe an experience, event, person or place. It may present an opinion or balanced argument. It can also compare and contrast, provide information, and offer suggestions or advice.

Business stories may focus on telling about yourself, your company to connect with new customers, or audience. They help to build trust. Stories may help explain that you are conducting your business for the right reasons, and there is mutual benefit for you as well as your customers.

The following types are based on journalistic structures:

 

·         News article: These are news reports we discussed above. They cover a diverse range of subject matters and are written in the Five “W”s and “H” format. These are called hard news for their emphasis on hard facts.

·         Feature article:

These are articles that are about “softer” issues. A feature may be a profile of a person who might have been nominated as the Employee of the Month or a product review. They may also focus on problems, issues, trends or opportunities. There are many types of feature articles, such as:

-          How-to feature: A “how-to feature” shows you step-by-step instructions on doing something, such as gardening, downloading software, writing an article. These are like writing instructions of guidelines, but in a journalistic structure. When writing how-to articles, it’s important to be clear and concise. If it’s possible, you can use illustrations to help in your explanation.

-          List feature: It consists of related information written in short paragraphs or in several sentences. These types of articles are easy to read when you’re looking for specific points.

-          Seasonal feature: Seasonal articles relate to a holiday event or certain period during a particular time of the year. some examples are Tihar or Festival or Lights, anniversary of your organization, summer holidays, etc.

-          Personal experience feature: This is written in first person and reflects your personal story. It can be positive or negative and if it’s negative be sure to offer some wise words or tips to turn the situation into something positive.

-          Humor and satire article: An article that is humorous or satirical. Needs good amount of creativity to write it. Sometimes, business newsletters use such items.

Other types of features could include round-up articles summarizing or listing materials from an interview, inspirational pieces on topics of achievements, motivation, and counselling.

·         Review: Unlike news or feature articles, reviews tend to be opinionated. They include your honest yet objective point of view about a product or service, such as a movie or a mobile phone plan.

·         Op-Ed or commentary article: It is an article that is usually published in the opposite the editorial (Op-Ed) page in a newspaper. It can be highly opinionated and argumentative, for example, an op-ed proposing that the government import taxes on vehicles should be lowered significantly.

·         Editorial: It is a brief official opinion article by a newspaper stating its stance on certain topics of public interest, such as consumer rights. It is usually published on the upper left corner of the editorial page.

·         Columns: It is an article written by the same person on a regular basis. A columnist (the writer of the column) writes about subjects of interest to him/her, such as current events. A business column in a newspaper is an effective way to educate and inform people about certain products, services or business issues. It can also serve as a forum to promote them.

 

Feature Story Structure:

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Broadcast Stories:

As a business communicator, you will use radio or television to publicize your company events, or to promote your products and services. Sometimes, you may adopt broadcast format to report a corporate event on your own, to podcast or vodcast the event online on company website or other social media platforms in order to share it with the wider audience.

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Broadcast Story Structure:

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Press Releases:

A press release is an official statement issued to news outlets giving information about a new matter regarding your company. It is the primary way in which you communicate news about your company to the news media. It’s a news report written by the company itself about its own product, service, event or new development. Journalists routinely rely on such releases to tip them off to new developments and trends inside a company.

In their potential for marketing, press releases may look like sales letters, circulars and brochures. However, effective press releases must not be promotional.

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Press Release Structure:

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Effective Media Relations:

Business communicators should develop good contacts with media outlets and journalists. Ring up journalists who cover stories that are related or relevant to your company.

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Advertisements:

Unlike news reports, some types of feature stories, and press releases, advertisements are promotional, sales materials.