Business Communication Chapter 3.pptx

CHAPTER THREE
PRINCIPLES OF
BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION

Objectives and Competences to
be Acquired
After completing this chapter,
students will be able to:
 Explain the meaning of principles of
business communication and
communication in general.
 Understand the different principles of
communication.

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
PRINCIPLES
 Your careful planning of the message is most
important for effective communication since
your goal is to gain desired reaction or
action from the recipient. Thus, think and
plan before you communicate.
 The application of business communication
principles helps to communicate
effectively through letters, memorandums,
reports, speeches, telephones, face-to-face
conversation, etc.

BUSINESS COMMUNI. …Cont.
 The principles of communication used to
achieve both specific and general
objectives of a message are collectively
justified as the 7Cs. The commonly used
principles are:
1. Completeness 5. Correctness
2. Conciseness 6. Consideration
3. Concreteness 7. Courtesy
4. Clarity

1. Principle of Completeness
 Your business letter is “complete” when it
contains all facts the reader needed for the
reaction you desire.
 To achieve both the specific purpose of the
message and goodwill, examine your messages
to make sure that you have covered everything
you intended to cover and that you provided
sufficient detail for your receiver to know what
you expect of him/her.
 Complete letter also minimizes the possible cost
of additional letter. To make your message
complete, make sure the reader/receiver knows
who is to do what? as well as where, when and
why he/she is to do it.

Principle of Completeness …Cont.
Furthermore to ensure completeness:
 Answer all questions asked by the
reader/receiver.
 Answer anticipated questions the reader may
have but forgot to ask.
 Provide all the information necessary for the
reader/receiver to make a logical decision.
 Explicitly ask the reader/receiver to perform an
action required, as may be necessary.
 Make the subject content sufficiently clear to
accomplish the business objective and
 Make the feeling suitable to accomplish the
human objective.

2. Principle of Conciseness
 Conciseness is one of the most important
principles of effective business writing
because a wordy message requires
more time and money to type and read.
 Conciseness is writing a message in the
minimum possible words without
sacrificing completeness and courtesy.
 Conciseness involves eliminating
unnecessary words. This means economy
in writing saves time and money.

Principle of Conciseness …Cont.
The following are suggestions that could help to
achieve conciseness.
i) Omit unnecessary and longer expressions
Example: Use “thank you” instead of "I want to
thank you", “May 4” instead of ”from this coming
Saturday'', etc.
ii) Avoid unnecessary repetition and wordy
statements
 Use a short name after you have mentioned the
longer one once. For example, instead of the ABC
Trading company, use “the company”.
 Use pronouns rather than repeating long names. For
instance, instead of using “the Ethiopian Insurance
Company" again and again, uses “It.”

 Omit unnecessary articles, relative pronouns
and prepositions.
 Example:
Article:
 the evidence we have. Evidence we have.
Relative pronoun:
 He said that he agreed. He said he agreed.
Prepositional phrase:
 Date of the policy. Policy date.

Wordy Concise
 During the year of 1993. During 1993.
 For the reason that since. Because.
Wordy sentence
 There is no question that the increased use
of advertising benefited the company.
Revised
 Unquestionably, the increased advertising
benefited the company.

iii) Include only relevant facts with
courtesy
 Include only those ideas that develop the
purpose of the message. The major causes
of irrelevancy include:
o Failure to stick to the purpose of the
message.
o Including information obvious to the reader.
o Using big words to make an impression.
o Beating around the bush.
o Being excessively polite, etc

3. Principle of Concreteness
 Writing concretely means being specific, definite,
and vivid rather than vague and general. The
following guidelines help you write concretely.
i) Use specific facts and figures – To make your
message concrete, use exact facts and figures
rather than general words. Example:
Vague, general, indefinite, Concrete and
convincing
 Our product has won several, (Name) product has
won first prize, in four national contests within the
past three years.
 Please send your check for the please send your
check for $500 full amount soon, on or before June
5.

Principle of Concreteness …Cont.
 Often vague, general words may have different
meanings to the sender and the receiver.
The list that follows give words, which can lead
to uncertainty, misunderstanding, or confusion.
A few, more, short
High, most, slow
Large, nice, small
Low, quick, soon
Many, several, tall
 Using plenty of examples, prefixed by phrases
like “for instance,” “for example,” “such as,” also
helps make your writing concrete as well as
clear.

Principle of Concreteness …Cont.
ii) Put action in your verbs – Strong verbs can
activate other words and help made your
sentences definite. To write strong sentences:
 Use active rather than passive verbs, and
Example:
“The board of directors decided” is more explicit
than “A decision has been made.”
 The passive requires more words and thus,
slows both the writing and reading. For
instance: “Figures show” is more concise than
“It is shown by figures”.

4. Principle of Clarity
 Clarity is the transfer of the writer’s thoughts
to a reader without misunderstanding. It is
the single most important factor in
communication.
 A misunderstood message is worse than no
message at all. A message that is not clear
to a reader cannot possibly communicate the
writer’s intentions.
 Thus, clarity is the writer’s first
responsibility. The first and most important
task of the writer is to be understood.

Principle of Clarity …Cont.
 The following are some specific ways that help to
make business writing clear.
i) Choose short and simple words rather than
long and complicated words – Generally, short,
familiar and everyday words communicate more
effectively than longer and less known words.
Therefore, use short and familiar words if your
reader is to understand your message. Example:
Complicated word Simple word
 Interrogate ask
 Subsequent to after
 Give consideration to consider
 Under date of on
 As of this writing now

 In addition, when you select words you
should make sure that the words you
have selected would mean the same
thing to your audience as they do to you.
 Words have both denotations (dictionary
meaning) and connotations (associated,
personal meanings).
 The words inexpensive and cheap can
denote the same thing. But their
connotations are different. For most people,
inexpensive simply means low in cost while
cheap means poorly made or a poor value.

ii) Avoid ambiguous and equivocal words
 Ambiguous words have more than one
meaning and equivocal words.
 Whenever possible, avoid technical jargons
when you talk or write to a person who is
not familiar with such words.
 If you must use technical words, define
them briefly and clearly, otherwise you
will confuse, embarrass, or irritate your
reader, and perhaps be forced to explain
later.

Technical jargon, Expressions familiar to lay
person
 Annual premium, annual payment
 Assessed valuation, value of property for tax
purpose
 Charge to your principal, increase the balance of
your loan
 Maturity date, final payment date
 Per diem, money paid daily
 Sentence: Days of grace under this policy
expire May 15, 1980
 Revised: The extra 30 - days allowed you to pay
your premium without interest end May 15, 1980

iii) Use concrete and specific words
rather than general and abstract
words –
 Specific language enables the reader to
visualize the action of your letter and it
creates believability.
 Always give exact facts, figures, details,
explanations and examples. For example,
instead of soon use March 15, 2019.

iv) Use short and simple sentences
 Sentence structure is also an important
consideration in achieving clarity.
 The easiest sentences to read and to
understand are short, simple sentences using
active voice in the past, present, or future
tense and making an explicit statement.
 While it is true that to avoid monotony,
sentence length should be varied; short
sentences are easier to read and are
therefore usually clearer than long
sentences.

v) Your message must be definite and
straight forward –
 State your message explicitly rather than
implicitly. Using specific and concrete words
will help you make explicit statements.
Example:
 Implicit: It will be to your advantage to
order now.
 Explicit: By ordering now, you will receive
two issues absolutely free.

vi) Construct effective sentences and
paragraphs
 Clear writing depends on logical structure. A
clear message requires a definite beginning,
middle and end.
 In addition to the logical structure, the writer
also needs to provide the reader with a unified
message that moves clearly from point to
point.
 A unified message has continuity of thought.
Unity and structure requires planning. You
should group related ideas together and then
arrange the groups into a logical sentence.

 In a sentence, unity means having one idea
and other ideas closely related to it. For
instance, The manager of the firm-X is
Abraha and Alemu won a gold medal in the
marathon, game.
 These two ideas do not relate; the second
idea is irrelevant to the first idea.
Sentences and paragraphs should have
logical sequence showing the reader the
relationship between them.
 The use of linking words is important in this
case.

vii) Include visual Aids, when
desirable
 Visual aids - such as headings,
tabulations, itemizations, pictures, and
charts are definite aids to clarity and
easy reading.

5. Principle of Correctness
 Presenting a message correctly helps you to
avoid the risk of miscommunication.
Mistakes cause misunderstanding and they
can destruct the recipients from concentrating
on the intended message.
 Besides, errors can affect the credibility of
the sender and the message.
 As a principle of effective writing the broad
term correctness refers to: Correct figures,
accurate statements, facts and explicit
identification of assumptions and opinions. It is
obvious that without correct figures and
statements, accurate communication is
impossible.

Principle of Correctness …Cont.
 Correct spelling, grammar, mechanics, and
language usage. Misspelled words, faulty
punctuation, and awkward constructions
will be barriers to communication.
 Your ability to use language correctly and to
write a message free from superficial errors
is a nonverbal message that tells your
readers that you are an intelligent,
careful person who cares enough about
them to pay attention to the details of
your message.

 Because your letters, memos, and reports
provide a lasting record of your abilities to
think, write and communicate about
business matters, you should take the
time to ensure correctness since
communication errors will undermine
your business effectiveness.
 Thus, as a writer of a business letter, you
should apply the following guidelines in
your communication.

i) Use correct level of language, spelling, and
grammar and mechanics. Use short, well-
known, and conversational words.
Spelling- misspelled words are the single most
common error in business letters.
Punctuation- Review the rules for using commas,
semicolons, and quotation marks.
 Use colon before a list of items, Example: Use
the first five English alphabets: A, B, C, D, and
E.
 Use commas to separate items in a series. Use
quotation- Example. For direct quotations when
said, “I will go to USA”

 Subject - verb agreement - Subjects and verbs
must agree in number and in person.
Example: The manager (singular) is (singular) quite
young.
 Pronoun - antecedent agreement – Pronouns and
their antecedents must agree in person, number
and gender.
Example: Abraham (singular, masculine, third
person) is pushing his (singular, masculine, third
person) product.
 Tense progression - Use the simple tenses (past,
present, and future) whenever possible. Make sure
that the verbs used for each event accurately depict
the time appropriate for that event.

 Parallel construction – Like ideas should be
expressed in like grammatical structures.
Pay particular attention to series, lists,
appositives, and ideas proceeded by correlative
conjunctions (either--- or, neither--- nor, not
only--- but also).
Example:
 He should either quit his job or learn to
operate the machine.
 Neither his supervisor nor his assistant filed
the paper.
 The manager prepared not only the reports but
also the tapes.

 Correct placement of modifiers – Place
modifiers close to the word or idea that
requires the modifier.
Example:
 Dangling: by working hard, the report will
be finished soon.
 Correct: by working hard, I will finish the
report soon.
 Misplaced: I know a man who sells filing
cabinet named smith.
 Correct: I know a man named smith who
sells filling cabinets.

ii) Ensure that the facts, figures and words
used are accurate:
 One erroneous digit can make a difference of
thousands of money.
 Even small errors of a few cents can be
annoying to customers and undermine
goodwill.
 To be sure of the accuracy of your facts, you
should verify all statements before writing
and again before you sign approve the
message.
 You also need to be up-to-date on laws that
affect your organization.

 Guessing or assuming that you are
right can be costly. Just because a certain
fact was true about a customer last year- or
even last month- does not assure it is
true now.
 You should also realize that, like most
things in life, language is alive and ever
changing.
 This is to say that language is in a
continuous development. New words
emerge; old words die. The change in
words may result confusion in usage.

6. Principle of Consideration
 The relationship between the message, the sender
and the receiver profoundly affects communication
effectiveness. Consideration means that preparing a
message with the recipient in mind.
 This includes trying to put oneself in his/her
place. It involves visualizing and evaluating the
recipient's situation, the desires, problems,
circumstances, emotions and probable reactions
to one's request so as to adjust the message from
the recipient's point of view.
 This includes taking into account the language and
tone of your message. This thoughtful of
consideration is also called “you - attitude”
empathy, the human touch, and understanding of
human nature.

Principle of Consideration …Cont.
To achieve consideration, it is necessary to apply the
following:
i) Focus on “you” instead of “I” and “we”
 Readers are usually more concerned about
themselves than about the writer or the company
they represent. They are more likely to read the
writer's message when they see their name and the
pronoun “you” rather than “I, We, Us.”
 Usually it is desirable to get the reader into the first
paragraph. If psychologically desirable, begin with
“you” or “your,” and keep your reader in the
message (tactfully) until you finish.
 The opposite of the you–attitude is the we-attitude, in
which the writer views every matter from his/her
own (or organization’s) standpoint rather than
from the reader’s.

We – attitude & You - attitude
 I want to send my Congratulations to you on
 Congratulations……. Your …
Study the following example:
 We - attitude: May I take this opportunity to
express my thanks for the account you recently
opened with our store. We are pleased to furnish
a wide variety of products for the home or
individual.
 You – attitude: Thank you for the account you
recently opened at DASHEN’S. Serving you with
your needs for clothing and a home furnishing is
a pleasure.

 As the foregoing example illustrates, a letter
is likely to have better you – attitude when it
contains more “you’s” than “I’s.” However, in
two kinds of situations it is advisable
not to use “you.”
1. When the reader has made a mistake:
 Don't say You failed to enclose your check in
the envelope.
 Say The envelope we received did not have
your check in it.

2. When the reader has expressed an
opinion different from your own.
 Don't say You are entirely wrong in your
attitude.
 Say the proposed plan has three aspects
which are extremely important and which
we need to explain now.

ii) Shows interest in the reader
 Whenever possible and true, show how
readers will benefit from whatever the
message asks or announces.
 They will be more likely to react favorably
and do what you suggest if you show
that benefits be worth the effort and
cost.
 For instance, reader-benefits are desirable in
job applications, favor requests, and
announcements to your customers,
prospective buyers, stockholders and
employees.

 If your company provides employee benefits
such as, health insurance and various
retirement plans, management should make
every effort to assure that all employees
understand and appreciate those
benefits.
 To inform employees effectively,
management can use such media as
memos, employee manuals, bulletins,
reports, etc.

iii) Emphasize on pleasant & positive facts
 Here, reader is required to accent the positive.
This means:
 Stressing what can be done instead of what
cannot be done and Focusing on ideas your
reader can view favorably.
 The reader wants to know what the writer can do
for him/her. For most people negative words like
no, won’t, cannot, never and impossible trigger
unpleasant emotional reactions.
 By making clear what you can or will do, you (by
implication) often make clear what you cannot
do, without using a single negative word.

Negative-Unpleasant & Positive-Pleasant
 It is impossible to open an account.
 As soon as your signature card reaches us,
we will gladly open an account for you today.
 When a customer closes an account, try to
begin your follow-up letter to the former
customer with a favorable positive
paragraph.
 A negative opening emphasizes ideas
you would rather not have the reader
think about.

iv) Be honest
 To be truly considerate, apply integrity - high
moral standards, personal honor, truthfulness,
sincerity-to your messages. Integrity is
always indispensable. Without it business
communications would prove worthless
and our confidence in people would be
shattered.
 Since you are an agent of your company, always
remember that your messages help build the
company’s image. And to make this image one
of integrity requires consistently fair
treatment of customers and to be honest
and sincere for them.

7. Principle of Courtesy
 Courteous message helps to strengthen
present business friendship, as well as
make new friends. Courtesy stems from
sincere you-attitude.
 It is not merely politeness with mechanical
insertions of “pleases” and “thank-you”.
 To be courteous, the communicator should
follow the following suggestions regarding
tone and promptness of messages.

Principle of Courtesy …Cont.
i) Be sincerely Tactful, Thoughtful, and
Appreciative
 A truly courteous person sincerely likes people, is
thoughtful of their feelings, and tries honestly to
help them. The courteous communicator tries to
make messages tactful and shows thoughtful
appreciation in special messages as well as in
every day communication.
Tactless Tactful
Your letter is not clear at all: If I understand your letter
I can’t understand it. correctly…..
Apparently you have already As mentioned in my May 15
forgotten what I wrote you letter (or memo) to you ,
two weeks ago. (continue with the facts)…

 Words that convey cordial and courteous
messages in congratulations and appreciation (to
persons both inside and outside the
organization) help build goodwill.
 Much money is spent on advertising to attract
new customers and to keep desirable old
customers. While advertising may bring buyers
into the front door of your firm, discourteous
letters can drive customers out the back
door.
 Remember, since customers indirectly help pay
your salary; you should let them know you
appreciate their orders, payments and
inquiries.

ii) Omit Expressions that Irritate, Hurt, or
Belittle
 The thought-full business writer should avoid
expressions that might offend the reader.
Therefore, in order to keep your letter
courteous you have to avoid:
 Irritating expressions - such as “contrary
to your inference”, “I do not agree with you”
 Belittling statements - Talking undermining
a reader is another form of discourtesy that
can have a profoundly unfavorable
effect.

iii) Grant and apologize Good-naturedly
 Whenever you have occasion to comply with
a customer’s request, begin your letter
with the best news first and inject a
courteous, ungrudging tone. Notice the
difference in tone of the following two
paragraphs
Grudging
 Your request causes a great deal of extra
paper work to change monthly payments.
However, in compliance with your request,
we…

Good-natured
 As you requested, we will reduce the monthly
interest and principal payments called for in your
note to….
 If a request has caused you extra work, you may
tactfully tell the customer somewhere in
the letter - but not the first paragraph.
 Occasionally you may get a “nasty” letter from
a customer, who is wrong in his/her accusations.
A courteous reply can lead not only to an
apology from the customer but also future
staunch loyalty as a boaster for your
organization.

iv) Answer your mail promptly
 For courtesy as well as better results one
should answer a business inquiry
promptly.
 If you need time to gather information, or
have a stack of other urgent work, before
you can answer a request, send a short
note like the following: I will gladly send
you the information you need. It may
take a few days to assemble the facts.
You will hear from me by….

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