ASSINGMENT
Assigned By: Engr. Umar Mushtaq Assigned To: Ahmad Abdur Rahman Roll No: 2K8-BS-28 Department: Computer Science Date: 15-12-09
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Topic: PCI Express
Four Basic Language Skills Most people who desire to learn a new language do it for a variety of reasons but most importantly it is done in order to communicate in that language. To communicate it is important to study a balance of the four basic language skills. Reading, listening, writing, and speaking are the main skills you need to communicate in any language. Being very good at only one of these skills will not help you to communicate. For example you need to be able to read well before you can write well. You also need to be able to listen before you can speak. Although there should be equal importance to these skills, I think the following order is best, especially if the writing system is different: reading - listening - writing – speaking. Language educators have long used the concepts of four basic language skills: 1
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The four basic skills are related to each other by two parameters. We can show their relationship in the following chart: Oral Receptive (Input) Listening Productive (output) Speaking I speak to you (OUTPUT: my thoughts go OUT of my head). You listen to me (INPUT: my thoughts go INto your head). You write to me (OUTPUT: your thoughts go OUT of your head). I read your words (INPUT: your thoughts go INto my head).
Listening When we speak of listening what we really mean is listening and understanding what we hear. In our first language, we have all the skills and background knowledge we need to understand what we hear, so we probably aren't even aware of how complex a process it is. Here we will briefly describe some of what is involved in learning to understand what we hear in a second language. 1
We can be involved in our listening, which is called Interactive listening and that situation usually includes face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in which we are alternately listening and speaking, and in which we have a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partner. Some non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, TV, films, lectures, or sermons. In such situations we usually don't have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition. Micro-skills
Richards (1983, cited in Omaggio, 1986, p. 126) proposes that the following are the microskills involved in understanding what someone says to us. The listener has to: retain chunks of language in short-term memory •discriminate among the distinctive sounds in the new language •recognize stress and rhythm patterns, tone patterns, intonational contours. •recognize reduced forms of words •distinguish word boundaries •recognize typical word-order patterns •recognize vocabulary •detect key words, such as those identifying topics and ideas •guess meaning from context 1
•recognize grammatical word classes •recognize basic syntactic patterns •recognize cohesive devices •detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, prepositions, and the like Application
• Listen to the radio • Watch English TV • Call Automated Answering Machine recordings • Watch movies & have a script in hand (www.eslnotes.com) • Use Internet listening resources
Listening as a Communications' Skill: Are you REALLY Listening? Most of us do not realize the importance of listening as a communicative tool. Yet studies have shown that we actually spend 50% more time listening than we do talking. We often take listening for granted, never realizing that it is a skill that can be learned. Watch someone who listens attentively. He/she makes eye contact and focuses on the other person while he/she listens. He/she listens with his eyes as well as his ears. While listening, he nods or makes attentive noises from time-totime. This is both a skilled listener and an attentive listener. The person he/she is listening to feels a sense of communication. Everyone wins with beneficial listening. 1
After your next conversation, test your ability to benefit from listening to that conversation. Analyze and ask yourself:
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What did I learn from the other person(s)? What did I learn about the other person(s)? Who did more talking ? Who did more listening? Did anyone interrupt? What questions should I have asked? What questions should I have answered more thoroughly? Was I absolutely certain I understood everything? Did I ask for clarification? Did I practice acknowledgment? Did he or she practice acknowledgment? Were both parties attending? Was the conversation balanced? Did anyone keep changing the subject? Did anyone get angry? Did anyone appear sad? Was everyone paying attention? What will I do different in my next conversation?
The ability to listen is a skill that can be improved with use. This skill can and will improve all your relationships with friends, mates, partners, children, and co-workers, even your boss!
10 Tips to Effective & Active Listening Skills Listening makes our loved ones feel worthy, appreciated, interesting, and respected. Ordinary conversations emerge on a deeper level, as do our relationships. When we listen, we foster the skill in others by acting as a model for positive and effective communication. In our love relationships, greater communication brings greater intimacy. Parents listening to their kids helps build their self-esteem. In the business world, listening saves time and money by preventing misunderstandings. And we always learn more when we listen than when we talk. 1
Listening skills fuel our social, emotional and professional success, and studies prove that listening is a skill we can learn. The Technique. Active listening is really an extension of the Golden Rule. To know how to listen to someone else, think about how you would want to be listened to. While the ideas are largely intuitive, it might take some practice to develop (or re-develop) the skills. Here’s what good listeners know — and you should, too: 1. Face the speaker. Sit up straight or lean forward slightly to show your attentiveness through body language. 2. Maintain eye contact, to the degree that you all remain comfortable. 3. Minimize external distractions . Turn off the TV. Put down your book or magazine, and ask the speaker and other listeners to do the same. 4. Respond appropriately to show that you understand. Murmur (“uh-huh” and “um-hmm”) and nod. Raise your eyebrows. Say words such as “Really,” “Interesting,” as well as more direct prompts: “What did you do then?” and “What did she say?” 5. Focus solely on what the speaker is saying . Try not to think about what you are going to say next. The conversation will follow a logical flow after the speaker makes her point. 6. Minimize internal distractions. If your own thoughts keep horning in, simply let them go and continuously refocus your attention on the speaker, much as you would during meditation. 7. Keep an open mind. Wait until the speaker is finished before deciding that you disagree. Try not to make assumptions about what the speaker is thinking. 8. Avoid letting the speaker know how you handled a similar situation. Unless they specifically ask for advice, assume they just need to talk it out. 9. Even if the speaker is launching a complaint against you, wait until they finish to defend yourself. The speaker will feel as though their point had 1
been made. They won’t feel the need to repeat it, and you’ll know the whole argument before you respond. Research shows that, on average, we can hear four times faster than we can talk, so we have the ability to sort ideas as they come in…and be ready for more. 10. Engage yourself. Ask questions for clarification, but, once again, wait until the speaker has finished. That way, you won’t interrupt their train of thought. After you ask questions, paraphrase their point to make sure you didn’t misunderstand. Start with: “So you’re saying…” As you work on developing your listening skills, you may feel a bit panicky when there is a natural pause in the conversation. What should you say next? Learn to settle into the silence and use it to better understand all points of view. Ironically, as your listening skills improve, so will your aptitude for conversation. A friend of my partner once complimented me on my conversational skills. I hadn’t said more than four words, but I had listened to him for 25 minutes.
Active Listening Hear What People Are Really Saying Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others. We We We We
listen listen listen listen
to obtain information. to understand. for enjoyment. to learn.
Given all this listening we do, you would think we’d be good at it! In fact we’re not. Depending on the study being 1
quoted, we remember a dismal 25-50% of what we hear. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they only really hear 2½-5 minutes of the conversation. Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren’t hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25- 50%, but what if they’re not? Clearly, listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, you will improve your productivity, as well as your ability to influence, persuade negotiate. What’s more, you’ll avoid conflict and misunderstandings – all necessary for workplace success. ) Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. By understanding your personal style of communicating, you will go a long way towards creating good and lasting impressions with others. The way to become a better listener is to practice “active listening”. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, to try and understand the total message being sent. In order to do this you must pay attention to the other person very carefully. You cannot allow yourself to become distracted by what else may be going on around you, or by forming counter arguments that you’ll make when the other person stops speaking. Nor can you allow yourself to lose focus on what the other person is saying. All of these barriers contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.
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Tip: If you're finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say it – this will reinforce their message and help you control mind drift.
To enhance your listening skills, you need to let the other person know that you are listening to what he or she is saying. To understand the importance of this, ask yourself if you’ve ever been engaged in a conversation when you wondered if the other person was listening to what you were saying. You wonder if your message is getting across, or if it’s even worthwhile to continue speaking. It feels like talking to a brick wall and it’s something you want to avoid. Acknowledgement can be something as simple as a nod of the head or a simple “uh huh.” You aren’t necessarily agreeing with the person, you are simply indicating that you are listening. Using body language and other signs to acknowledge you are listening also reminds you to pay attention and not let your mind wander. You should also try to respond to the speaker in a way that will both encourage him or her to continue speaking, so that you can get the information if you need. While nodding and “uh huhing” says you’re interested, an occasional question or comment to recap what has been said communicates that you understand the message as well.
Becoming an Active Listener There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you hear the other person, and that the other person knows you are hearing what they are saying. 1.
Pay attention. Give the speaker your undivided attention and 1
acknowledge the message. Recognize that what is not said also speaks loudly. Look at the speaker directly. Put aside distracting thoughts. Don’t mentally prepare a rebuttal! Avoid being distracted by environmental factors. “Listen” to the speaker’s body language. Refrain from side conversations when listening in a group setting. o
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Show that you are listening. Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention. Nod occasionally. Smile and use other facial expressions. Note your posture and make sure it is open and inviting. Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and uh huh. o
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Provide feedback. Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect what is being said and ask questions. Reflect what has been said by paraphrasing. “What I’m hearing is…” and “Sounds like you are saying…” are great ways to reflect back. Ask questions to clarify certain points. “What do you mean when you say…” “Is this what you mean?” Summarize the speaker’s comments periodically. o
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Tip: If you find yourself responding emotionally to what someone said, say so, and ask for more information: "I may not be understanding you correctly, and I find myself taking what you 1
said personally. What I thought you just said is XXX; is that what you meant?" 4.
Defer judgment. Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the message. Allow the speaker to finish. Don’t interrupt with counter-arguments. o
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Respond Appropriately. Active listening is a model for respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting him or her down. Be candid, open, and honest in your response. Assert your opinions respectfully. Treat the other person as he or she would want to be treated. o
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Key Points: It takes a lot of concentration and determination to be an active listener. Old habits are hard to break, and if your listening habits are as bad as many people’s are, then there’s a lot of habit-breaking to do! Be deliberate with your listening and remind yourself constantly that your goal is to truly hear what the other person is saying. Set aside all other thoughts and behaviors and concentrate on the message. Ask question, reflect, and paraphrase to ensure you understand the message. If you don’t, then you’ll find that what someone says to you and what you hear can be amazingly different! Start using active listening today to become a better communicator and improve your workplace productivity and relationships. We were given two ears but only one mouth. 1
This is because God knew that listening was twice as hard as talking.
People need to practice and acquire skills to be good listeners, because a speaker cannot throw you information in the same manner that a dart player tosses a dart at a passive dartboard. Information is an intangible substance that must be sent by the speaker and received by an active listener. THE FACE IT SOLUTION FOR EFFECTIVE LISTENING
Many people are familiar with the scene of the child standing in front of dad, just bursting to tell him what happened in school that day. Unfortunately, dad has the paper in front of his face and even when he drops the paper down half-way, it is visibly apparent that he is not really listening. A student solved the problem of getting dad to listen from behind his protective paper wall. Her solution was to say, "Move your face, dad, when I'm talking to you.'' This simple solution will force even the poorest listener to adopt effective listening skills because it captures the essence of good listening. GOOD LISTENERS LISTEN WITH THEIR FACES
The first skill that you can practice to be a good listener is to act like a good listener . We have spent a lot of our modern lives working at tuning out all of the information that is thrust at us. It therefore becomes important to change our physical body language from that of a deflector to that of a receiver, much like a satellite dish. Our faces contain most of the receptive equipment in our bodies, so it is only natural that we should tilt our faces towards the channel of information. 1
A second skill is to use the other bodily receptors besides your ears. You can be a better listener when you look at the other person . Your eyes pick up the non-verbal signals that all people send out when they are speaking. By looking at the speaker, your eyes will also complete the eye contact that speakers are trying to make. A speaker will work harder at sending out the information when they see a receptive audience in attendance. Your eyes help complete the communication circuit that must be established between speaker and listener. When you have established eye and face contact with your speaker, you must then react to the speaker by sending out non-verbal signals. Your face must move and give the range of emotions that indicate whether you are following what the speaker has to say. By moving your face to the information, you can better concentrate on what the person is saying. Your face must become an active and contoured catcher of information. It is extremely difficult to receive information when your mouth is moving information out at the same time. A good listener will stop talking and use receptive language instead. Use the I see . . . un hunh . . . oh really words and phrases that follow and encourage your speaker's train of thought. This forces you to react to the ideas presented, rather than the person. You can then move to asking questions, instead of giving your opinion on the information being presented. It is a true listening skill to use your mouth as a moving receptor of information rather than a broadcaster. A final skill is to move your mind to concentrate on what the speaker is saying . You cannot fully hear their point of view or process information when you argue mentally or judge what they are saying before they 1
have completed. An open mind is a mind that is receiving and listening to information. If you really want to listen, you will act like a good listener. Good listeners are good catchers because they give their speakers a target and then move that target to capture the information that is being sent. When good listeners aren't understanding their speakers, they will send signals to the speaker about what they expect next, or how the speaker can change the speed of information delivery to suit the listener. Above all, a good listener involves all of their face to be an active moving listener. THINGS TO REMEMBER
1. If you are really listening intently, you should feel tired after your speaker has finished. Effective listening is an active rather than a passive activity. 2. When you find yourself drifting away during a listening session, change your body position and concentrate on using one of the above skills. Once one of the skills is being used, the other active skills will come into place as well. 3. Your body position defines whether you will have the chance of being a good listener or a good deflector. Good listeners are like poor boxers: they lead with their faces. 4. Meaning cannot just be transmitted as a tangible substance by the speaker. It must also be stimulated or aroused in the receiver. The receiver must therefore be an active participant for the cycle of communication to be complete.
Speaking skill 1
Speaking involves more than just pronouncing words. Interactive speaking situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in which we are alternately listening and speaking, and in which we have a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partner. Some speaking situations are partially interactive, such as when giving a speech to a live audience, where the convention is that the audience does not interrupt the speech. The speaker nevertheless can see the audience and judge from the expressions on their faces and body language whether or not he or she is being understood. Some few speaking situations may be totally noninteractive, such as when recording a speech for a radio broadcast. Micro-skills
Here are some of the micro-skills involved in speaking. The speaker has to: • pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that people can distinguish them. This includes making tonal distinctions. • use stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation patterns of the language clearly enough so that people can understand what is said. • use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for example, changes in the tense, case, or gender. • put words together in correct word order. • use vocabulary appropriately.
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• use the register or language variety that is appropriate to the situation and the relationship to the conversation partner. • make clear to the listener the main sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, by whatever means the language uses. • make the main ideas stand out from supporting ideas or information. • make the discourse hang together so that people can follow what you are saying. Application
• Talk to yourself • Record your own voice • Use the telephone. • Learn common idioms • Understand the sounds that your language doesn't have • Practise minimal pairs • Study word and sentence stress • Practice tongue twisters
Better Public Speaking and Presentation Ensure Your Words Are Always Understood Think of the last really memorable talk or presentation that you attended. Now, was that easy to do, or did you really 1
have to rack your brains to remember one? Sadly, too many presentations are easy to forget. And that's a big problem because the only reason the presenter gave the talk was to communicate something to you! However, there are three basic things that you can do to ensure that your verbal messages are understood – and remembered – time and time again. Although somewhat obvious and deceptively simple, these are: •
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Understand the purpose of the presentation Keep the message clear and concise Be prepared Be vivid when delivering the message
Understand what you want to achieve Before you start working on your talk or presentation, it's vital that you really understand what you want to say, who you want to tell and why they might want to hear it. To do this, ask yourself: Who? What? How? When? Where? Why? Who are you speaking to? What are their interests, presuppositions and values? What do they share in common with others; how are they unique? What do you wish to communicate? One way of answering this question is to ask yourself about the ‘success criteria’. How do you know if and when you have successfully communicated what you have in mind? How can you best convey your message? Language is important here, as are the nonverbal cues discussed earlier. Choose your words and your nonverbal cues with your audience in mind. Plan a beginning, middle and end. If time and place allow, consider and prepare audio-visual aids.
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When? Timing is important here. Develop a sense of timing, so that your contributions are seen and heard as relevant to the issue or matter at hand. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. ‘It’s better to be silent than sing a bad tune.’ Where? What is the physical context of the communication in mind? You may have time to visit the room, for example, and rearrange the furniture. Check for availability and visibility if you are using audio or visual aids. Why? In order to convert hearers into listeners, you need to know why they should listen to you – and tell them if necessary. What disposes them to listen? That implies that you know yourself why you are seeking to communicate – the value or worth or interest of what you are going to say.
Keep it simple When it comes to wording your message, less is more. You're giving your audience headlines. They don't need to and are usually not expecting to become experts on the subject as a result of hearing your talk. If you're using slides, limit the content of each one to a few bullet points, or one statement or a very simple diagram
Be prepared Preparation is underrated. In fact, it is one of the most important factors in determining your communication successes. When possible, set meeting times and speaking and presentation times well in advance, thus allowing yourself the time you need to prepare your communications, mindful of the entire communication process (source, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver, feedback and context). By paying close attention to each of these stages and preparing accordingly, you ensure your
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communications will be more effective and better understood. Of course, not all communications can be scheduled. In this case, preparation may mean having a good, thorough understanding of the office goings-on, enabling you to communicate with the knowledge you need to be effective, both through verbal and written communications.
Unforgettable delivery Your delivery of your speech or presentation will make or break it, no matter how well you've prepared and crafted your clear, concise message. Some useful tips for keeping your presentation vivid include: •
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Use examples to bring your points to life Keep your body language up-beat – don't stay stuck behind a rostrum Don't talk to fast. Less is more here too. Pauses are effective. Use a variety of tones of voice Use visual aids.
Most important speaking skill Recently, a test taker asked me this about the speaking test in IELTS (International English Language Testing System): “Can you tell me what the most important skill for speaking is? How is pronunciation marked?” My reply was: Regarding your question about the most important speaking skill, there’s no simple answer. Four areas are assessed in the speaking test, and you need to be good at all four. Having good vocabulary, for example, is not going to help you get a satisfactory band score if your grammar is weak or your fluency is poor. 1
Areas assessed
Here are the four areas assessed by examiners in the speaking module and an outline of the factors influencing your band score: Fluency and Coherence: Can you talk at a normal rate of speech (not too fast and not too slow), with normal effort, and without too many pauses or corrections? Can you present and link ideas in an understandable and connected way? Lexical Resource: How clearly can you present your information, ideas and opinions through the words you choose to use? How appropriate are those words? How broad is your range of words? How well can you get round any lack of vocabulary by using other words? Grammatical Range and Accuracy: How broad is your range of grammatical structures? How complex are those structures, and how long are your answers? How accurate and appropriate are the structures? How much do any grammatical errors affect the examiner’s ability to understand what you’re talking about? Pronunciation: How difficult is it for the examiner to understand what you’re saying because of the way you’re pronouncing words? How well do you communicate meaning by using pronunciation features (such as the use of a rising tone to show you’re asking a question)? Pronunciation scoring
“Pronunciation” refers to the way a word or a language is usually spoken. IELTS examiners use a nine-band scale to measure test taker’s pronunciation skills. The scale considers how easily an examiner can understand a candidate plus a number of features of spoken English. Here’s a brief introduction to some of the features of English pronunciation: 1
Word and sentence stress: “Word stress” relates to the stress given to one syllable within a word. “Sentence stress” relates to the stress that is given to the key words in a sentence: the words that communicate the sentence’s main meaning. Intonation: This refers to the use of rising or falling tones to indicate different meanings. For example, different tones can show whether the speaker has a positive or negative attitude, is certain or unsure, or is asking a question. The linking of words : The pronunciation of a word can change a little when it’s part of a phrase or sentence. This allows that word and the following word to be said together more quickly. Rhythm: This is a combination of stress, intonation, linking and the speed of talking. In a stress-timed language like English, syllables are stressed at roughly regular intervals. As it is the key words in sentences that are stressed, the words in between get shortened and weakened so that two or three of them together take up the same amount of time as the single, stressed syllables before and after them. This produces the rhythm, or “beat,” of spoken English. Phrasing: This refers to the appropriate use of pauses to show the correct meaning of groups of words. Nine-band scale
Here’s my simplified version of the band scores for pronunciation: Band 1: Any English that the test taker tries to produce is impossible to understand. Band 2: The candidate’s English is often impossible to understand as pronunciation is so poor.
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Band 3: The test taker’s pronunciation shows some of the features of Band 2 and some, but not all, of the positive features of Band 4. Band 4: Although the candidate uses a limited range of pronunciation features, his or her overall control of spoken English is poor. There are often pronunciation errors that make it difficult for the examiner to understand what the candidate is trying to say. Band 5: The test taker’s pronunciation shows all the positive features of Band 4 and some, but not all, of the positive features of Band 6. Band 6: The candidate uses a range of pronunciation features with mixed control, and can only produce some pronunciation features effectively for a short while. Although individual words or sounds are occasionally pronounced incorrectly, causing brief difficulty for the examiner, the candidate can generally be understood throughout the test. Band 7: The test taker’s pronunciation shows all the positive features of Band 6 and some, but not all, of the positive features of Band 8. Band 8: The candidate uses a wide range of features of spoken English with only occasional errors. The candidate is easy to understand throughout the test (even if there’s an accent from his or her first language). Band 9: The test taker uses a full range of pronunciation features with great precision and skill. The examiner can understand the candidate without any effort.
Strategies for Developing Speaking Skills 1
Students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning process. Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies -- using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about language -- that they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their confidence in using it. These instructors help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn. 1. Using minimal responses
Language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence while others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges. Such responses can be especially useful for beginners. Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding, agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a stock of such responses enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to simultaneously plan a response. 2. Recognizing scripts
Some communication situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken exchanges -- a script. Greetings, apologies, compliments, invitations, and other functions that are influenced by social and cultural norms often follow patterns or scripts. So do the transactional exchanges involved in activities such as obtaining information and making a purchase. In these scripts, the relationship between a speaker's turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated. 1
Instructors can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response. Through interactive activities, instructors can give students practice in managing and varying the language that different scripts contain. 3. Using language to talk about language
Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. Instructors can help students overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for clarification can occur in any type of interaction, whatever the participants' language skill levels. Instructors can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check. By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs, and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom.
Public Speaking Skill Jerry Seinfeld said, "According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. That would mean at a funeral, people are five times more likely to want to be in the casket than giving the eulogy." Speaking in public is often cited as the number one fear of adults. People get a perception about how competent you are by how you present yourself when you stand and speak in 1
front of the public. A person who is confident in front of a group gives off an air of competence, whereas a person who fumbles might leave a negative impression in the audience. Self-confidence is the basic foundation towards public speaking. But how can you look and feel confident when faced with the challenge of giving a presentation or speech to a large number of people? No one is born as an excellent public speaker. Most of the famous speakers have gone through the same experience what you have when doing first speech. What made them successful is their effort in preparing and practicing. If you deliver a good speech, you become lovable to audience. And, to be capable you have to learn the skill of doing it and master it. When you feel that you are Lovable and Capable, your self esteem will rise and become confident. Your feelings and confidence are connected. If you feel confident it will show and the reaction you get from your audience will be a positive boost to your self esteem which will spur you on to success. Preparation is most important in public speaking. It means getting all information such as, who is your audience and what is you are going to talk about, where and how long your speech going to be, what message your audience must take away from you and your Key points what your audience should remember at end of your speech. Story telling is an excellent tool in public speaking. Stories build rapport with your audience and gain credibility. Audience will remember your stories longer than your key points of your speech. You must be able to connect your key points to the story and deliver it. Your audience will love your stories and remember your key points.
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Tell your personnel experiences and avoid white lies. Be prepared to inject relevant story at appropriate part of your speech. Let your audience see you and your enthusiasm, and you will have a great speaking performance. Dale Carnegie said, "There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave." I believe in success principles and attracting what I want in life. My life is an example of how law of attraction works. I am blessed father of two beautiful daughters. I am living in Singapore with my wife and children.
More on Speaking Skill The Department and School provide many opportunities for students to practice their speaking skills. Here are just a few: •
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Research area seminar series (AI, CS, Logic, POP, PS, Theory) Research unit seminar series (CALD, HCII, LTI, Robotics) SCS Cultural Exchange Series Regular lunchtime talks (e.g., SDI lunch, Graduate Student Seminar Series) Research area group meetings (e.g., Machine Learning, SSSG, Multicomputer) Oral presentations in regular graduate courses or as part of a project course Recitations, tutorials, and guest lectures (as a teaching assistant)
To satisfy the oral communication skill requirement each student should give a public talk at Carnegie Mellon. The talk is scheduled so that members of the standing committee, the Speakers Club , can attend, evaluate the student's talk, and provide oral and written feedback to the student. 1
This talk must be accessible to a general Computer Science audience. It should be advertised as ``In Partial Fulfillment of the Speaking Requirement'' so the audience knows what kind of feedback the student is seeking and so all interested and available Speakers Club members can mark their calendars accordingly. Students should be able to use existing forums (e.g., those listed above) to give their talk, and thereby avoid having to schedule a special talk. Of course it is acceptable if the student wants to schedule a special time and date. The only requirement is that at least two faculty members and one graduate student member of the Speakers Club be present at the talk. The Speakers Club ``robot'' helps students schedule their talks, ensures a quorum of Speakers Club members is met, and reminds Speakers Club members of their responsibility and commitment to attend talks. All Speakers Club members are welcome to attend the advertised talk. Immediately after the talk, those members in attendance confer among themselves (with the student absent) about the talk. They also each fill out a Speaking Review Form, available from the Associate Department Head. If at least two faculty members and one graduate student member of the Speakers Club grade the student's talk to be ``Good'' or better, then the student passes. If not, the attending members should come to a consensus as to what further action is necessary: to give another talk or to do a ``remedial'' (equivalent to a conditional pass). After a decision has been made, one of the attending faculty members volunteers to discuss the feedback and outcome privately with the student. If the student passes, the student takes all signed forms to the Associate Department Head who keeps copies in the student's file and marks in the student's records the completion of this requirement. Much of this part of the process is like what happens after a thesis proposal presentation or thesis defense; the focus here, however, is on oral communication skills. 1
As with writing, speaking well takes practice. Satisfying this requirement might take a few tries on the student's part. For students who are naturally good speakers or are already experienced speakers, one try may suffice. No stigma is attached to those who have to try more than once.
Reading skill Reading can develop independently of listening and speaking skills, but often develops along with them, especially in societies with a highly-developed literary tradition. Reading can help build vocabulary that helps listening comprehension at the later stages, particularly. Micro-skills
Here are some of the micro-skills involved in reading. The reader has to: decipher the script. In an alphabetic system or a syllabary, this means establishing a relationship between sounds and symbols. In a pictograph system, it means associating the meaning of the words with written symbols. recognize vocabulary. •pick out key words, such as those identifying topics and main ideas. •figure out the meaning of the words, including unfamiliar vocabulary, from the •(written) context. recognize grammatical word classes: noun, adjective, etc. 1
•detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, prepositions, etc. •recognize basic syntactic patterns. •reconstruct and infer situations, goals and participants. •use both knowledge of the world and lexical and grammatical cohesive devices to make the foregoing inferences, predict outcomes, and infer links and connections among the parts of the text. get the main point or the most important information. •distinguish the main idea from supporting details. •adjust reading strategies to different reading purposes, such as skimming for main ideas or studying in-depth. Application
• Read something every day: Children's books, simplified readers (Penguin), newspapers, magazines, Internet sites, novels, and much much more... • Read what interests you. • Read at the appropriate level • Review Who, What, Where, When, Why for each story you read • Always have an English-English dictionary nearby • Record vocabulary in a personal dictionary
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Chall's Stages of Reading Development Jeanne Chall's model of the stages of reading acquisition is well known.(Resnick, pg 38) In Chall's model, each stage builds on skills mastered in earlier stages; lack of mastery at any level can halt the progress beyond that level.
Stage 0. Prereading: The learner gains familiarity with the
language and its sounds. A person in this stage becomes aware of sound similarities between words, learns to predict the next part in a familiar story, and may start to recognize a few familiar written words. Chall's Stage 0 is considered comparable to what is often called "reading readiness." Typically developing readers achieve this stage about the age of 6.
Stage 1. Initial reading stage, or decoding stage : The
learner becomes aware of the relationship between sounds and letters and begins applying the knowledge to text. This demonstrates the reader has achieved understanding of the critical concept of the alphabetic principleand is learning soundsymbol correspondences, the alphabetic code.Typically developing readers usually reach this stage by the age of 6 or 7.
Stage 2. Confirmation: This stage involves confirming the
knowledge acquired in the previous two stages and gaining fluency in those skills. Decoding skills continue to improve, and they begin to develop speed in addition to accuracy in word recognition. At this point, the reader should be able to give attention both to meaning and to the print, using them interactively to build their skills and fluency. This stage is critical for the beginning reader. If the developing reader stops making progress during this stage, the individual remains, in Chall's words, "glued to the print." Typically developing readers usually reach this stage around the age of 8.
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Stage 3. Reading to learn : At this stage, the motivation for
reading changes. The reader has enough reading skill to begin to read text in order to gain information. Readers' vocabulary development accelerates at this point resulting from increased exposure to the written word. Typically developing children usually achieve this stage in 4th grade, around the age of 9.
Stage 4. Multiple viewpoints : The reader at this stage
begins to be able to analyze what they read, understand different points of view, and react critically to what they read. Typical readers are developing this skill set during the high school years, around ages 14 to 19.
Stage 5. Construction and judgment : At this stage,
readers have learned to read selectively and form their own opinions about what they read; they construct their knowledge from that of others. This highest level of reading development is not usually reached until college age, or later, and may in fact be achieved only by those who have an intellectual inclination.
Other views
Phase 1: Uta Frith's view of phase 1 as
the logographic phase. Linnea Ehri calls it the visual-cue phase.
Phase 2: Ehri's phonetic cue, or rudimentary alphabetic,
stage.
Phase 3: Gough and Hillinger's cipher or alphabetic phase Phase 4: Orthographic phase
Skills required for proficient reading 1
According to the National Reading Panel, the ability to read requires proficiency in a number of languagedomains: phonemic awareness, phonics (soundsymbol correspondence), fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Phonemic awareness: The ability to distinguish and manipulate the individual sounds of language. The broader term, phonological awareness, also includes rhymes, syllables, and onsets and rimes.
Phonics: Method that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and their use in reading and spelling. This helps beginning readers understand how letters are linked to sounds (phonemes), patterns of letter-sound correspondences and spelling in English, and how to apply this knowledge when they read.
Fluency: The ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and comprehension.
For struggling readers, traditional phonics instruction can have the unintended consequence of promoting dysfluency. The difficulty lies in the coarticulated nature of speech. Speech sounds are overlapping], while print is discrete and sequential. This can be appreciated if one places his/her mouth in position to begin to produce the word cat vs cot. The initial hard c is colored by the subsequent vowel even before speech begins, i.e., the smiling position as one prepares to say cat vs the more limp position as one prepares to say cot. As the early reader works from left to 1
right, beginning with the onset consonant, s/he typically does not yet know the vowel with which it must be coarticulated. And, the vowel sound itself cannot be known until the remaining rime (the rime is the portion of the syllable beginning with the vowel and extending to its end: ig in rig vs ight in right) is fully encountered. The following example illustrates the dysfluency that this can create. Without looking ahead, begin to sound out the following word, left to right, using letter-sound knowledge. The first letter is b, the sound of which is- try to say it. The second letter is o. If you said the sound of b was buh, you have some revision to do since you have ended in a vowel sound that does not allow for blending with the o. But how does the o sound? Now you have bo. What does it sound like? The o could be long or short. Try bou, bough. At this point you might have begun to appreciate that the vowel is not knowable until you reach the end of the syllable, i.e., until you have considered the full rime. Now try bought. For these reasons, teaching reading through orientation to rime first and then adding the onset (ought-bought) can be helpful in promoting fluency through supporting the phonological problems of coarticulation. Emphasis on the rime also supports the development of an intuitive, and therefore more fluent, awareness of orthographic patterns. [7]
Vocabulary: A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as context.
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Reading Comprehension :The NRP describes comprehension as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. Reading comprehension is heavily dependent on skilled word recognition and decoding, oral reading fluency, a well-developed vocabulary and active engagement with the text.
Rapid automatized naming : The ability to quick say the name of both letters, objects and colors predicts an individual's ability to read. This might be linked to the importance of quick retrieval of phonological representations from long-term memory in reading and the importance of object-naming circuits in the left cerebral hemisphere that are recruited to underpin a child word-recognition abilities.
Top 10 Ways to Improve Reading Skills Nothing is more important to academic achievement than being a good reader. Parents know their children best and can provide the one-on-one time and attention that will lead them to success in reading. Here is a list of ways to help your children become more effective readers. 1. Set aside a regular time to read to your children every day. Studies show that regularly reading out loud to children will produce significant gains in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and the decoding of words. Whether your children are preschoolers or preteens, it will increase their desire to read independently. 2. Surround your children with reading material. Children with a large array of reading materials in their 1
homes score higher on standardized tests. Tempt your kids to read by having a large supply of appealing books and magazines at their reading level. Put the reading materials in cars, bathrooms, bedrooms, family rooms, and even by the TV. 3. Have a family reading time. Establish a daily 15 to 30 minute time when everyone in the family reads together silently. Seeing you read will inspire your children to read. Just 15 minutes of daily practice is sufficient to increase their reading fluency. 4. Encourage a wide variety of reading activities. Make reading an integral part of your children's lives. Have them read menus, roadside signs, game directions, weather reports, movie time listings, and other practical everyday information. Also, make sure they always have something to read in their spare time when they could be waiting for appointments or riding in a car. 5. Develop the library habit. Entice your children to read more by taking them to the library every few weeks to get new reading materials. The library also offers reading programs for children of all ages that may appeal to your children and further increase their interest in reading. 6. Be knowledgeable about your children's progress. Find out what reading skills they are expected to have at each grade level. The school's curriculum will give you this information. Track their progress in acquiring basic reading skills on report cards and standardized tests. 7. Look for reading problems. Teachers do not always detect children's reading problems until they've become serious. Find out if your children can sound out words, know sight words, use context to identify unknown words, and clearly understand what they read.
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8. Get help promptly for reading problems. Reading problems do not magically disappear with time. The earlier children receive help, the more likely they will become good readers. Make sure your children receive necessary help from teachers, tutors, or learning centers as soon as you discover a problem. 9. Use a variety of aids to help your children. To help your children improve their reading, use textbooks, computer programs, books-on-tape, and other materials available in stores. Games are especially good choices because they let children have fun as they work on their skills. 10. Show enthusiasm for your children's reading. Your reaction has a great influence on how hard they will try to become good readers. Be sure to give them genuine praise for their efforts.
Reading Strategies Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently
Good reading strategies help you to read in a very efficient way. Using them, you aim to get the maximum benefit from your reading with the minimum effort. This section will show you how to use six different strategies to read intelligently.
Strategy 1: Knowing what you want to know The first thing to ask yourself is: Why you are reading the text? Are you reading with a purpose or just for pleasure? What do you want to know after reading it? Once you know this, you can examine the text to see whether it is going to move you towards this goal.
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An easy way of doing this is to look at the introduction and the chapter headings. The introduction should let you know at whom the book is targeted, and what it seeks to achieve. Chapter headings will give you an overall view of the structure of the subject. Ask yourself whether the book meets your needs. Ask yourself if it assumes too much or too little knowledge. If the book isn't ideal, would it be better to find a better one?
Strategy 2: Knowing how deeply to study the material Where you only need the shallowest knowledge of the subject, you can skim material. Here you read only chapter headings, introductions and summaries. If you need a moderate level of information on a subject, then you can scan the text. Here you read the chapter introductions and summaries in detail. You may then speed read the contents of the chapters, picking out and understanding key words and concepts. At this level of looking at the document it is worth paying attention to diagrams and graphs. Only when you need detailed knowledge of a subject is it worth studying the text. Here it is best to skim the material first to get an overview of the subject. This gives you an understanding of its structure, into which you can fit the detail gained from a full, receptive reading of the material. SQ3R is a good technique for getting a deep understanding of a text.
Strategy 3: Active Reading When you are reading a document in detail, it often helps if you highlight, underline and annotate it as you go on. This emphasizes information in your mind, and helps you to review important points later. 1
Doing this also helps to keep your mind focused on the material and stops it wandering. This is obviously only something to do if you own the document! If you own the book and find that active reading helps, then it may be worth photocopying information in more expensive texts. You can then read and mark the photocopies. If you are worried about destroying the material, ask yourself how much your investment of time is worth. If the benefit you get by active reading reasonably exceeds the value of the book, then the book is disposable.
Strategy 4: How to study different sorts of material Different sorts of documents hold information in different places and in different ways. They have different depths and breadths of coverage. By understanding the layout of the material you are reading, you can extract useful information much more efficiently. Reading Magazines and Newspapers: These tend to give a very fragmented coverage of an area. They will typically only concentrate on the most interesting and glamorous parts of a topic - this helps them to sell copies! They will often ignore less interesting information that may be essential to a full understanding of a subject. Typically areas of useful information are padded out with large amounts of irrelevant waffle or with advertising.
The most effective way of getting information from magazines is to scan the contents tables or indexes and turn directly to interesting articles. If you find an article useful, then cut it out and file it in a folder specifically covering that sort of information. In this way you will build up sets of related articles that may begin to explain the subject. 1
Newspapers tend to be arranged in sections. If you read a paper often, you can learn quickly which sections are useful and which ones you can skip altogether. Reading Individual Articles: Articles within newspapers and magazines tend to be in three main types: •
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News Articles: Here the most important information is presented first, with information being less and less useful as the article progresses. News articles are designed to explain the key points first, and then flesh them out with detail. Opinion Articles: Opinion articles present a point of view. Here the most important information is contained in the introduction and the summary, with the middle of the article containing supporting arguments. Feature Articles: These are written to provide entertainment or background on a subject. Typically the most important information is in the body of the text.
If you know what you want from an article, and recognize its type, you can extract information from it quickly and efficiently.
Strategy 5: Reading 'whole subject' documents When you are reading an important document, it is easy to accept the writer's structure of thought. This can mean that you may not notice that important information has been omitted or that irrelevant detail has been included. A good way of recognizing this is to compile your own table of contents before you open the document. You can then use this table of contents to read the document in the order that you want. You will be able to spot omissions quickly. 1
Strategy 6: Using glossaries with technical documents If you are reading large amounts of difficult technical material, it may be useful to photocopy or compile a glossary. Keep this beside you as you read. It will probably also be useful to note down the key concepts in your own words, and refer to them when necessary. Usually it is best to make notes as you go. Effective ways of doing this include creating Concept Maps or using the Cornell Note Taking System.
Key points: This section shows six different strategies and techniques that you can use to read more effectively. These are: •
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Knowing what you need to know, and reading appropriately. Knowing how deeply to read the document: skimming, scanning or studying. Using active reading techniques to pick out key points and keep your mind focused on the material. Using the table of contents for reading magazines and newspapers, and clipping useful articles. Understanding how to extract information from different article types. Creating your own table of contents for reviewing material. Using indexes, tables of contents, and glossaries to help you assimilate technical information.
Writing skill 1
Writing is more complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be the hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way. Micro-skills
Here are some of the micro-skills involved in writing. The writer needs to: • use the orthography correctly, including the script, and spelling and punctuation conventions. • use the correct forms of words. This may mean using forms that express the right tense, or case or gender. • put words together in correct word order. • use vocabulary correctly. • use the style appropriate to the genre and audience. • make the main sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, and object, clear to the reader. • make the main ideas distinct from supporting ideas or information. • make the text coherent, so that other people can follow the development of the ideas.
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• judge how much background knowledge the audience has on the subject and make clear what it is assumed they don't know. Application
Keep a diary/journal •make lists •Write emails •Rewrite your local news in target language •Learn important spelling rules •Learn commonly misspelled words •Learn common English errors •Get an penpal
Getting Your Written Message Across Clearly A colleague has just sent you an email relating to a meeting you're having in one hour's time. The email is supposed to contain key information that you need to present, as part of the business case for an important project. But there's a problem: The email is so badly written that you can't find the data you need. There are misspellings and incomplete sentences, and the paragraphs are so long and confusing that it takes you three times more than it should to find the information you want. As a result, you're under-prepared for the meeting, and it doesn't go as well as you want it to. Have you ever faced a situation similar to this? In today's information overload world, it's vital to communicate 1
clearly, concisely and effectively. People don't have time to read book-length emails, and they don't have the patience to scour badly-constructed emails for "buried" points. The better your writing skills are, the better the impression you'll make on the people around you – including your boss, your colleagues, and your clients. You never know how far these good impressions will take you! In this article, we'll look at how you can improve your writing skills and avoid common mistakes.
Audience and Format The first step to writing clearly is choosing the appropriate format. Do you need to send an informal email? Write a detailed report? Create advertising copy? Or write a formal letter? The format, as well as your audience, will define your "writing voice" – that is, how formal or relaxed the tone should be. For instance, if you write an email to a prospective client, should it have the same tone as an email to a friend? Definitely not. Start by identifying who will read your message. Is it targeted at senior managers, the entire human resources team, or a small group of engineers? With everything you write, your readers, or recipients, should define your tone as well as aspects of the content.
Composition and Style Once you know what you're writing, and for whom you're writing, you actually have to start writing.
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A blank, white computer screen is often intimidating. And it's easy to get stuck because you don't know how to start. Try these tips for composing and styling your document: •
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Start with your audience – Remember, your readers may know nothing about what you're telling them. What do they need to know first? Create an outline – This is especially helpful if you're writing a longer document such as a report, presentation, or speech. Outlines help you identify which steps to take in which order, and they help you break the task up into manageable pieces of information. Use AIDA – If you're writing something that must inspire action in the reader, follow the AttentionInterest-Desire-Action (AIDA) formula. These four steps can help guide you through the writing process. Try some empathy – For instance, if you're writing a sales letter for prospective clients, why should they care about your product or sales pitch? What's the benefit for them? Remember your audience's needs at all times. Use the Rhetorical Triangle – If you're trying to persuade someone to do something, make sure that you communicate why people should listen to you, pitch your message in a way that engages your audience, and present information rationally and coherently. Our article on the Rhetorical Triangle can help you make your case in the most effective way. Identify your main theme – If you're having trouble defining the main theme of your message, pretend that you have 15 seconds to explain your position. What do you say? This is likely to be your main theme.
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Use simple language – Unless you're writing a scholarly article, it's usually best to use simple, direct language. Don't use long words just to impress people.
Structure Your document should be as "reader friendly" as possible. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbering whenever possible to break up the text. After all, what's easier to read – a page full of long paragraphs, or a page that's broken up into short paragraphs, with section headings and bullet points? A document that's easy to scan will get read more often than a document with long, dense paragraphs of text. Headers should grab the reader's attention. Using questions is often a good idea, especially in advertising copy or reports, because questions help keep the reader engaged and curious. In emails and proposals, use short, factual headings and subheadings, like the ones in this article. Adding graphs and charts is also a smart way to break up your text. These visual aids not only keep the reader's eye engaged, but they can communicate important information much more quickly than text.
Grammatical Errors You probably don't need us to tell you that errors in your document will make you look unprofessional. It's essential to learn grammar properly, and to avoid common mistakes that your spell checker won't find. Here are some examples of commonly misused words: •
Affect/effect
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"Affect" is a verb meaning to influence. (Example: The economic forecast will affect our projected income.) "Effect" is a noun meaning the result or outcome. (Example: What is the effect of the proposal?)
Then/than •
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"Then" is typically an adverb indicating a sequence in time. (Example: We went to dinner, then we saw a movie.) "Than" is a conjunction used for comparison. (Example: The dinner was more expensive than the movie.)
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Your/you're
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"Your" is a possessive. (Example: Is that your file?) "You're" is a contraction of "you are." (Example: You're the new manager.) Note: Also watch out for other common homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings) – such as their/they're/there, to/too/two, and so on. Its/it's •
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"Its" is a possessive. (Example: Is that its motor?) "It's" is a contraction of "It is." (Example: It's often that heavy.) (Yes, it is this way around!)
Company's/companies (and other possessives versus plurals) •
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"Company's" indicates possession. (Example: The company's trucks hadn't been maintained properly.) "Companies" is plural. (Example: The companies in this industry are suffering.)
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To learn more about commonly misused words, misused apostrophes, and other grammatical errors, take our BiteSized Training session on Written Communication. Tip: Some of your readers – arguably an increasing number – won't be perfect at spelling and grammar. They may not notice if you make these errors. But don't use this as an excuse: there will usually be people, senior managers in particular, who WILL notice!
Because of this, everything you write should be of a quality that every reader will find acceptable.
Proofing The enemy of good proofreading is speed. Many people rush through their documents, but this is how you miss mistakes. Follow these guidelines to check what you've written: •
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Proof your headers and subheaders – People often skip these and focus on the text alone. Just because headers are big and bold doesn't mean they're error free! Read the document out loud – This forces you to go more slowly, so that you're more likely to catch mistakes. Use your finger to follow text as you read – This is another trick that helps you slow down. Start at the end of your document – Proofread one sentence at a time, working your way from the end to the beginning. This helps you focus on errors, not on content.
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Key Points More than ever, it's important to know how to communicate your point quickly and professionally. Many people spend a lot of time writing and reading, so the better you are at this form of communication, the more successful you're likely to be. Identify your audience before you start creating your document. And if you feel that there's too much information to include, create an outline to help organize your thoughts. Learning grammatical and stylistic techniques will also help you write more clearly; and be sure to proof the final document. Like most things, the more you write, the better you're going to be!
Why Writing Skills Are Important Of all the classes I took in college and graduate school, the two that have helped me most in my career have been English Composition and Business English. In these classes I learned effective writing skills, which I have used in every job I have ever had. No other job but my work on this site included writing as part of my job description. In spite of this, I was required to write in every job, and it was taken for granted that I would be able to do this. This is the case with most jobs -- whether you must write internal memos, correspond with clients, or help design sales materials. Writing beautiful prose and poetry is a talent. Writing effectively, however, is a skill that can be learned. Organize Your Writing
Whether you are writing a memo to your co-worker or a report for your boss, you should decide what information you want to convey. Here is how to do this: 1
1. List each item you need to discuss in your memo or report. 2. Put them in order — from most to least important 3. Write a brief summary of your entire memo — this will be your first paragraph. 4. Expand on each item listed in step 1. 5. If any action needs to be taken by the recipient, state that in your closing paragraph. Some Tips
Avoid wordiness. Say out loud what you are trying to write. Listen to how the words sound. For example, the sentence, "I found out that I should take a look at our past sales figures in order to come up with a plan to help us reevaluate our sales technique" could be more simply stated as "I must take a look at our past sales figures to reevaluate our sales technique." Write for your audience. Use simple language. You don't want the reader to need a dictionary to decipher what you are trying to say. You should not try to impress your reader with your huge vocabulary. Chances are you will frustrate your reader instead. Most people are juggling several tasks at the same time, and are interested in receiving only necessary information. You are responsible for making this happen. Instead of saying, "His gregarious nature credentials him as a superlative candidate for the job," say "His friendliness makes him a top candidate for the job." Stay away from jargon your reader may not understand. If your work is very technical, but the person you are writing to is not well versed in that field, stick to words that person will understand. For example, if you are a Web site designer, this sentence in a memo to your client, a psychologist, will make no sense: "What would you like me to use as the BGCOLOR for your site: #ADD8E6 or #FFFFFF?" Anyone proficient in Web page design knows 1
that this question can be translated to "What would you like the background color of your site to be: Light Blue or White?" However, don't expect your client to be more familiar with this technical jargon than you would be with her discussion of a psychological term such as trichotillomania. A cliche a day keeps the reader away — or at least it does not make him or her remember what you are saying. You want your writing to be memorable. Because we hear cliches often, we become desensitized to them. The words, then, are not uniquely associated with your writing. Rather than saying "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today" in a memo to a subordinate you are trying to motivate. Simply say, "Stop procrastinating. Get the job done now." When possible, use the active voice. The active voice makes your sentence stronger and usually shorter. Let's try these examples. Passive voice: "Sales increased due to the networking I did." Active voice: "My networking increased sales." Don't be redundant. It is not necessary to say "2 p.m. in the afternoon" or "the expectant pregnant woman." Saying "2 p.m." or "2 in the afternoon" or "the expectant woman" or "the pregnant woman" all convey what you want to say and are less wordy. Of course pay attention to grammar. Use Strunk and White's Elements of Style , available on the Web. A good dictionary should be nearby, along with a thesaurus. A thesaurus will allow you to keep your writing fresh by helping you find a variety of words to use. Many of these resources are available online. Proofreading is one of the most important things you can do. Since you probably do most of your writing on a 1
