Virtual Tour - Impact: A Guide to Business Communication, 5th Edition

Impact: A Guide to Business Communication, 5th Edition

In the last few years, the computer has become an indispensable part of student academic life. For many courses, the computer is now mandatory. For others, working with a computer and the Internet is simply more convenient and efficient than older methods of researching and writing assignments. Similarly, using e-mail is an informal and easy way of getting in touch with instructors, classmates, and friends.

Students today are generally more adept at using computers than the generation of merely a decade ago.

The fifth edition of Impact reflects the extraordinary growth of this technology and its influence in the last few years. Individual chapters incorporate new advice and exercises relating to the computer and other technologies, such as voice mail. Nevertheless, as every instructor knows, the medium is not a panacea. Previous guidelines for effective communication are as relevant as ever.

Since business students typically are practical, results-oriented, and pressed for time, this book is deliberately lean, giving them the least they need to know to do the job well. A good reader will take only a few hours to go from cover to cover. I’ve tried to follow my own advice to produce a clear, concise, and forceful text that students will want to read and remember.

My approach is based on three assumptions:

Thinking through a communications problem is more effective than simply learning a formula.

Writing well is less a matter of right or wrong than of making choices between better and worse.

Inexperienced writers pay too little attention to planning and editing.

Since reading about a problem is no substitute for addressing it, the chapters have exercises, which are specific and technical, as well as more in-depth assignments called Thinking It Through, which require a broad range of decision-making skills. Each chapter also includes a number of Online Activities with interactive exercises on all aspects of business communication. The fifth edition of Impact includes:

the addition in each chapter of a new Internet Issues section dealing with the effects of new technology on business communication

new material on global and intercultural communication

a revised and expanded formal report and a discussion of both APA and MLA documentation

a list of over 200 Web sites with information, articles, and links related to a broad range of business communication topics

(Web Warning: The addresses listed in the Online Activities and Weblinks sections in each chapter of Impact were active at the time of writing. Nevertheless, Web sites are constantly changing as Web hosts move to new servers or develop new sites. Although every step has been taken to ensure the currency of these resources, you may find that some sites no longer exist or have moved to a new address.)

The changes in this edition incorporate the advice of readers and users of earlier editions as well as the findings of recent research.

When students have mastered the material in Impact, they should be able not only to handle the particular problems discussed in the text, but also to apply the principles to any other writing or speaking task. Whatever the business challenge, they should be able to think their way through to effective communication.