Chapter 1: Professional Communications
Learning Objectives
- Distinguish between the nature of English and Communications courses.
- Explain the importance of studying Communications.
- Identify communication-related skills and personal qualities favoured by employers.
- Consider how communication skills will ensure your future professional success.
- Recognize that the quality of your communication represents the quality of your company.
- Distinguish between personal and professional uses of communications technology in ways that ensure career success and personal health.
- Integrate appropriate technology and design fundamentals to support communication objectives (ENL1004 Course Learning Outcome 3.2).
- Identify the value, limitations, and hazards of Generative AI and other transformative technologies (ENL1004 Course Learning Outcome 4.4).
- Illustrate the communication process to explain the end goal of communication.
- Troubleshoot communication errors by breaking down the communication process into its component parts.
- Analyze information to determine purpose and meaning (ENL1004 Course Learning Outcome 2.1).
- Use paraphrasing and summarizing strategies to ensure accurate comprehension of a variety of message types (ENL1004 Course Learning Outcome 2.2).
Though you may want to jump right into action with writing messages, it’s important to step back and think first about what we’re doing when we’re communicating. This allows us to be thoughtful about our approach to the communication process, whether we’re writing, reading, speaking, or listening. In this first chapter, we start by answering in more detail the question raised in the Introduction about why you even need a Communications course after your high school English courses. Next, we look at what communicating involves in the modern workplace. At the heart of the chapter, we very lightly touch on communication theory, but—rest assured—this will be as theoretical as this guide to professional communications gets. We do this only to establish the terms for how to troubleshoot miscommunication in practice. Finally, we consider your responsibilities as an active listener in the communication process. This can help you become an excellent learner in your classes and conversational partner in all the interactions that lead to your professional success.
