Effective and Organizational Communication Essay

The course Effective and Organizational Communication has truly been rewarding because most of the things I have learned from my class are actually life skills that find real value in the outside world. While Effective and Organizational Communication is intended for the corporate setting, these skills are not actually specific to certain industries; rather they are universally functional in whatever field of endeavor one may wish to pursue. This paper intends to look at three major areas of learning that were tackled in the course and discuss their proper applications. The first area is Public Speaking. There are many free resources on public speaking on the Internet. Indeed, having the aptitude for public speaking is a special kind of power because you are in a position to convince people to make certain decisions and choices. What you say is as important as how you say it. In fact, the delivery is what separates a good public speaker from one who is simply good with words. In a nutshell, public speaking is all about presentation. From the websites that I have checked out, I have realized how important it is to be able to address an audience and hold their duration for the entire time that you are speaking. And this does not only take place during formal occasions; we all perform public speaking in school and in work. Among the most useful tip I have read is to let your audience be active participants in your speech. As much as possible, prepare a speech that allows for audience to demonstrate certain points of the topic. For instance, if you are talking about the power of knowledge, have someone from the audience describe the route he or she takes from home to a certain place. From there, you can segue to making a point about how one can be very comfortable discussing something that one is very familiar with, even in front of an audience of strangers. This particular talk or presentation is made all the more effective because you prove your point through random audience participation. QAR or question and answer underscores the importance of the relationship of answers to questions. In communication, it is important that your answers do not digress; that they are tightly focused and directly answer the question. Similarly, if you are the one asking the question, your statement should also be succinct and direct to the point. This is important so that any miscommunication or misunderstanding can be prevented, and the issues resolved in the soonest possible time. In education, teachers must be able to design questions that can best elicit the desired response, or the target skill. If the questions are ambiguous, the students will have a difficult time structuring their answers. From the readings that I have made, I have realized that questions serve as the frame by which answers attach themselves, and as such the ability to design effective questions is the key to an effective QAR. There are several types of QAR, and their use depends on what skills you want to assess. As I have previously mentioned, QAR is especially important for teachers as they attempt to assess different types of cognitive levels and operations. For example, if you want to test the ability of the students to analyze, then ask for information that goes beyond what is available in the text or material. In analysis, the presumption is that the fundamental concepts of the lesson are well-understood and thus be able to make generalizations or apply the concepts in other situations (Steele, 1997). In QAR, the most important issue is to determine the type of response you want to elicit in order to test the target skill. Another topic in Effective and Organizational Communication is Email Etiquette. Indeed as the world becomes more and more connected, the email is becoming the preferred mode of communication for business and personal correspondences. While the email is generally considered as less formal than a standard letter, that is slowly changing. In fact, there is an entire set of rules governing email, outlining how to use this medium in a formal and efficient way. According to the online writing lab of Purdue University, email etiquette refers to the set of guidelines that experts believe should govern the exchange of communication via electronic mail or email for short. These experts believe that the electronic medium is not an excuse to forget our manners and proper usage. (Hughes, 2002) To be safe, just write your email as you would an ordinary letter, only be more succinct. As a general rule of thumb, emails must be concise and up to the point. This is due to the fact that people read the computer differently than they would a regular book or text. Of course, the email you will be making depends on the intention of your letter. For personal letters, you are given more freedom, but for business emails, it is better to maintain a formal tone. In any case, letter should always be treated as a reflection of the writer, regardless whether it is an ordinary letter or an email. How you want to present yourself and how you want to be perceived depends on how you organize your thoughts and write them down. All of these three concepts are part and parcel of an effective organizational communication. But beyond organizational communication, all the three lessons that I have learned can be used in all aspects of my life because communication is an activity that all of us pursue on a daily basis.