English Buisness Comunication

English for business
Lingua Inglese
Università degli Studi di Milano
38 pag.
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LINGUA INGLESE
(13 apr) INTRO: In this course we will focus in 4 essential aspects: study how, why and what circumstances communication
occurs in the context of workplace relationships; review the most challenging aspects of grammar (third lecture); combine
theory and practice, various modes of comprehension (written such as text and articles and oral like listening some videos); and
put some of the theorical instruments into practice (online participation mode: see the PPT on choosing your mode of
participation).
HOW DO HUMAN COMMUNICATE (WHAT'S COMMUNICATION): Each of us can assign different meaning on the
word that we say.
Communication come from latin and means "to share", all communication aspect come from the idea of sharing a meaning
(what you say and also how you say it): communication is a Process of Understanding and Sharing meaning.
The keyword of communication are PROCESS (when you communicate you try to build a form of what you're talking about,
you must be understood), UNDERSTANDING (perceive, interpret, relate our perception and interpretation of what we already
know) and SHARING (doing something together).
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION: Business communication can be sort off as a problem-solving activity, where individuals try
to find answers to these questions: “What's the situation?” “What are some possible communication strategies?” “What is the
best course of action?” “What is the best way to design the chosen message?” “What is the best way to deliver the message?”.
SOFT SKILLS: Hard skills are those that needs studies to be achieved, soft skills are those that that we can develop by using
the most of them.
Communication is the most important and used soft skill, because it's something that develops constantly; if we design the top
five skill potential (soft skills) employer seek we would have: 1 st → Communication skills (verbal and written); 2 nd
→ Strong work ethic; 3 rd → Teamwork skills (work well with others and, also, group communication); 4 th →
Initiative; 5th → Analytical skills.
Warning: Communication skills are not just about using grammar and terms correctly; we will say why during this course.
IQ vs EQ: IQ is the Intelligence Quotient (high concentration, intense focus, better comprehension, analytical skills, excellent
memory); in order to be successful today IQ is not enough: so a good IQ must be combined with a good EQ, the Emotional
Quotient (self awareness, self regulation, empathy, social skills).
SHANNON-WEAVER MODEL: SW defined this model that explains mathematically how communication works (from the
sender to the receiver).
The sender is the source that elaborate the message and share it with the audience or the receiver that furnish a feedback that
can be read by the senders (feedback shows if the message was sent properly).
In this model we can see how a message can be “lost” when arriving to the receiver; reason is that between them we fin 4
more elements: the Encoder (how the message is transmitted), the Channel (where the message pass by) that may be
influenced by the Noise (all the context elements that influences the message meaning) and the Decoder (how the message is
received).
In this model we could also add the Feedback, but it's not a thing that was mentioned by SW when this model was created.
8 ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION:

• Source (senders): Someone (or something) that elaborate the message and send it.
• Message: Conventional signs, stimulus, from which we produce meaning, in poor words the information (that may
be implicit or explicit).
• Channel: The way in which the message travels between the sender and the receiver (es. Face to face, tv, radio,
telephone, ecc.)
• Receiver: Those who receive a message and translate it to catch the meaning.
• Feedback: it's a message that the receiver send back to the source, a message that helps the source to see if the
meaning of its message has been caught correctly.
• Environment: It's the atmosphere (both physical and also psychological) where you send and receive the message.
• Context: it involves in the scene and the expectation of the people involved in the communication (it include culture,
language, formality or informality, ecc.).
• Interference: Everything that may block the message or change its meaning (es. Noises).
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL: In this model the two poles of the communication are both sender and receiver, because they
both share various informations (communication is not just the sending of a message but a share of various messages).
You always communicate, also when listening to someone who's speaking to you (es. Every body movement send a message
to your interlocutor).
With the communication works the environment and the field of experience (the experience we bring with us when starting to
communicate), so communication is not linear but affected by various elements and situations.
CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL: Researcher have examined the idea that we not only receive and decode the message, but we
construct it: we build a meaning referring to our background.
EXERCISES:

Receive: feedback message
Share: feedback, thoughts, idea
Grasp (comprendere): message, ideas, meaning
Prevent: confusion, miscommunication, misunderstanding
Interpret: thoughts, idea, message, meaning, feedback
Lead to: miscommunication, misunderstanding, confusion, animosity
Asking people questions usually prevent miscommunication.

One of the most common reasons that leads to misunderstandings is the use of complicated sentence structures.
It only makes sense to share positive feedback as it keeps everyone happy.
People with various knowledge, experience and cultural background interpret messages in a different way.
The transmission model means that communication is a one-way model.

In the transactional model people give and receive feedback.
Perceptual filters change meanings and interpretation of message we receive.
Engage actively with the verbal and nonverbal feedback of others and adjust your message to facilitate greater understanding.
Listen with your eyes and ears as well with your guts, remember that communication is more than just words.
In the rush to express ourselves it's easy to forget that communication is a two-way street. Beopen to what the other person
might say.
Be aware of your personal perceptual filters. Elements of your experience, including your community, family and culture
influence how you see thw world.
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INFERENCE (Inferenza = forma di ragionamento con cui si dimostri il logico conseguire di una verità da un'altra): Inference
is an element that might hel to avoid miscommunication: when the message of a speaker goes beyond the literal or logical
meaning of the sentences used, a pragmatic inference is required to understand the complete meaning of an utterance
(espressione).
Inference (noun → you make an inference) ; Infer (verb → to infer something) ; Inferential (adjective → your conclusion
is inferential)
So inference is a kind of logical conclusion based on our experience and knowledge.
NOTES:
1) Types of communication by agent: We can communicate to our self (Intrapersonal communication) to other people
(Interpersonal, Group, Public and Mass communication).
2) Perfect Communicator: The perfect communicator is supposed to be prepared, organized, clear (when communicating),
concise (shouldn't go overboard too much) and ethical.
Shackle = mettere ai ferri, ammanettare, incatenare; it's similar to chained
INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE: It's very important to use specific word that avoid offenses and stereotype.
inclusive language is defined as language that avoids the use of certain expressions and words that might be considered
exclusive by specific groups of people; here some tips (gender inclusive):
• Avoid gendered nouns: when speaking generally try to replace gendered nouns such as “fireman” with neutral
counterparts such as “fire-fighters”.
• Be mindful of titles and forms of address: for example: f you don't know the gender of your interlocutor use the
neutral title Ms (avoid Mr and Mrs).
• Avoid sexist expression: such as “throw like a girl” or “man up”.
• Pronouns: there are 3 (4) strategies about the pronouns: pairing (use she/he), alternating (use “she” in an instance
and “he” in the following one), pluralizing (use “they” instead of “he” or “she”; when talking of an individual use
they, it would get a singular meaning).
We talked about gender inclusive terms but it applies to various group (ethnic groups, people with disability,
homo/bi/transexual groups, ecc.)
Implicit Bias: Unconscious associations, attitudes and beliefs held about a given social group; implicit bias may lead to
stereotype and influence the way we speak.
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EXERCISES:
Exclusive terms: “Hi guys!” (refers only to males) “disabled person” (enphasise the disability) “(riascolta c)” “Qhat does
your husband do” (maybe the person we speakin to is not married or homosexual), “(riascolta e)” “older workers” (negative
age parameter) “manpower” (it's gender exclusice) “she's normal” (emphasise the differences between “normal”people and
“non-normal” people).
MESSAGE: “In rethorical and communication studies, a message is defined as information conveyed (trasmesso) by words (in

speech of writing), and/or other sign and symbol.
A message (verbal or nonverbal or both) is the content of the communication process.
Intentionally or noth, both verbal and nonverbal contest is part of the information that is transferred in a message; if nonverbal cues
(spunti) do not align with the verbal message, ambiguity is introduces even as uncertainty (incertezza) is increased.”
Goobledygook: a group of words that seems to make sense grammatically but they don't make any sense semantically (language too
difficult to understand.
LANGUAGE: It's a code, a system of symbols (in our case are speaking and gestures), with specific meaning related to the context
(it's impossible decode the meaning of a word without context).
Each letter in a word stand for a sound, the acoustic expression is arbitrary and different in every language
There are different words with same meaning and word with different meanings, also words mean something with associated with
other ones (it's also related to the language).
MESSAGE CONTENT: Message content include many different factor, not only the meaning but also something about yourself:
• RAW DATA: it's what we think the message contains, it includes something that can't be contested as a result of a scientific
study, measurement and conclusion.
They're easy to transfer cause they don't require any inference and are very effectively decoded by the receiver (of course if
it has the same measurement system).
• FACTS: It's different from the raw data because it's about subjective experience that the sender surely had.
• IDEAS: Ideas are abstract information presented in a theoretical form, constructed in our mind only.
• OPINIONS: It's distinguished by ideas and facts, it can be considered like a point of view related to the way we consider a
fact.
• BELIEFS: It's related to opinions, it's about the way we think if something is true or not and affects, of course, our
behavior.
• EMOTION: Something contained in a message that expresses human feelings.
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HOUSEWORK
1-Raw data and observation of our experience
2-Filter in specific information and details from our experience (we choose the most important informations)
3-Assign meaning to the information we have filtered through (interpret what information is telling us)
4-Develop assumptions based on the meaning that we created on the previous step and distinguish facts from stories.
5-Develop conclusions based on our assumptions (and create an emotional reaction)
6-We adjust our beliefs about the world around us (including people involved in our experience)
7-We take action based on our adjusted beliefs
COMMUNICATION BARRIERS (Handshout 5)

1-Different communication styles → Organize teams based on communication styles
2-Unclear responsibilities → Clearer goals for every scheduled meeting – More cross functional projects
3-Time Pressure → A wider range of communication tools
4-Lack of strong leadership → Firm-wide training to improve internal communication
5-Personal experience among colleagues → More cross-functional projects
6-Client Demands → A wider range of communication tools
7-Corporate culture → Firm wide training to improve internal communication
8-Reliance on ineffective communication tools and technologies → More face to face team meetings
9-Financial Pressure → Clearer goals for every scheduled meeting
10-Use of Jargon → Organise teams based on communication style – Firm wide training to improve internal communication
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(15 apr) TYPES OF MESSAGES: There are 3 main types of messages:

• Primary messages: they refer to the intentional content, what you actually want to communicate, (verbal and non-verbal,
like tone of voice, communication).
• Secondary messages: they refer the unintentional content, the one we didn't want to include but we did (verbal and non-
verbal).
• Auxiliary messages: it's something that is communicated not in the message itself but in the way the message is sent (like
gesture, way of speech ecc.).
MESSAGE'S CONSTRUCTION: Messages are usually are broken down in 5 parts:

• Attention statement: what you say, do and gesture in order to get your audience attention.
• Introduction: in which you may state (dichiarare) what you want to communicate.
• Body: the message itself.
• Conclusions
• Residual message: something that stay with the audience after the communication is finished.
Example: “Listen! (attention statement) I want to talk to you about something! (introduction) Our exam's going to happen in this way
(body of the message), so you're welcome to join this class in order to prepare (conclusion). Call me if you need to (residual
message).
LANGUAGE'S RULES: Language has rules; as we said in the last lesson language is a code, but it has follow 3 main logic rules in
order to mean something:

• Syntax: they are the grammatical rules, the way we structure our message.
• Semantics: it's something that governs the meaning, it studies the meaning of the message (that can be registered in a
dictionary).
• Context: it rules the meaning and the word choice of the message, which words are acceptable in a specific moment.
LANGUAGE SHAPE OUR THOUGHT: The way you are born in a specific culture, shapes the way you speak, and the way you
speak shapes your perception of reality.
Language shapes our personalities, the way we behave, our feelings; also there are words that only exist in specific culture and
languages.
PARADIGM: Language is not the only thing that shapes our thought, there are also paradigm: this is a typical example, a pattern, a
model of something (es. What we can consider like the ideal woman).
There are several signs that contribute to this so called paradigm, tied up to form the cultural web:
• Stories: the background that shaped someone.
• Symbols: the visual representation of something (sometimes of someone).
• Rituals and Routines: they refer to daily behavior, what we do every day and what it symbolizes.
• Organizational structure - Power structure - Control System: these 3 different aspects define who is in charge and who has
to report to whom, they way an organization is organized ecc.
• Organizational cultures: there are 2 different organizational culture: the Culture of Blame (organization thinks that people
are the problem) and Culture of accountability (organization thinks that people are problem-solvers, an opportunity).
DENOTATION vs CONNOTATION (MEANING): A Denotation is the common meaning (what we usually find in a dictionary); a
Connotation is the secondary meaning, the one that give a specific characteristic to the word.
Examples: a clique → a set of people (denotation) or a self-serving group of people that excludes outriders (connotation);
a mob → a set of people (denotation) or an angry crowd (connotation).
LANGUAGE AS OBSTACLES: Sometime language may be vague or doesn't precise enough what we are saying:
• Cliché: It's an expression that has been used so many times that results boring, interchangeable ( intercambiabile), vague,
lazy, lacking in credibility, with no actual evidence, ecc.
To avoid clichés you should stop thinking about what you're trying to say and start to think about what you really mean.
• Jargon: the use of particular terms that don't belong to the official language itself.
• Slang: it belongs to particular social groups.
• Sexist or Racist language's: we already talked about these previously, they tend to exclude some groups of people.
• Euphemisms: people use specific quotes to refer to something completely different (look to the exercises below), a non-
literal meaning of the words and phrases.
• Doublespeak: this term's born in the Orwell's novel “1984”: it means to say something without communicating anything at
all; we also have to talk about the term “Orwellian” which means the use of a distorting language that don't refers to the
truth properly.
• Inflated language: it's usually used by advertising, it's a puffed up (important-sounding) use of words to give commonplace
(luogo comune) things and events an elevated (glowing) appearance.
UDIENCE'S ATTENTION: How could you avoid the use of these bad ways of speaking listed above (ho do you make your message
more effective)?
There are strategies that can help you to be a better speaker:
• Visuals: having a visual can be a good way to hold your audience interest and keep your meaning clear.
Warning: using visuals should support your informations, not replace them.
• Signposts: they belong to the same category of visuals, they are indicators in your speech that alert your audience (es. the
linkers).
• Internal Summaries and Foreshadowing: the first are very little repetition of your previous speech, the second ones are
strategies to encourage your audience to keep its attention.
• Repetitions: they are not always effective but repeating something during your speech is a way to spectacularize a specific
thing (es. The repetition of “i have a dream” by Martin Luther King).
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EXERCISE
Jill's got a bit a spare of a tire these days, hasn't she? → refers to OBESITY
Their TV fell off the back of the truck. → refers to a CRIME
When is the happy event going to be? → refers to a BIRTH
Would you like to wash your hands? → refers to GO TO THE TOILETS
He is guest of Her majesty for six months. → refers to BE IN PRISON
My cousin is an actor but he is resting at the moment → refers to UNEMPLOYMENT
The politician seemed to be rather tired and emotional during the debate. → refers to ALCOHOL (BE DRUNK)
Pat's being rather economical with the truth, wouldn't you agree? → refers to LYING
There were three hundred casualties in yesterday battle → refers to WARFARE
The trade union is organizing a day of action tomorrow → refers to STRIKES (sciopero)
Orwel's rules: Here are come tips by G. Orwell to make your speech effective:
• Never use a metaphor, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print (sulla stampa).
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

• If it is possible to cut a word, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
IMPROVING VERBAL COMMUNICATION:
OVERCOMING BARRIERS: Sometimes words are taked out of contexts (es. Those who are against abortion call them self
“pro-life”, making intend that who's not against abortion is “pro-death”).
This kind of miscommunication is caused by what we can call Barriers, everything that leads to miscommunication.
To overcoming barriers we have firstly to identify their causes:
• Technological: especially now with social network, messages may be not delivered due to a technological failure.
• Physical: messages my not be delivered to some people of too big audience.
• Physiological: sometimes our interlocutors may have physiological problems (es. Blindness) that don't allow them to
transpose (recepire) our messages.
We can distinguish 3 kinds of physiological barriers: Alertness and Selective Attention (affecting what data our
senses manage to pick up, es. Some people don't transpose messages during morning because they are tired),
Perception (many people interpret the same sensory data differently) and Memory (affects the messages we retain and
those we can subsequently recall).
• Psychological/Social: a message from an external stakeholder can be ignored because of the “groupthink”.
• Cultural: some people may misunderstand your message because its culture is differente.
• Linguistic: some way of speaking might be incomprehensible.
• Political: an individual may be marginalized because of its political ideas (and obviously is message would be ignored).
• Economic: sometime messages are not available to public sector because the lack of resources.
GROUPTHINK: It's a group of well-intentioned people that make a disfuntional or irrational decision, not because it's the right
thing but just for the sake of the group itself; generally because they prefer to follow the will of a leader.
In groupthink people have an illusione of invulnerability, contributing to excessive optimism and risk-taking behaviour, they
have a “collective rationalisation” of the problem (they're using some logic to justify their means), which discounts negative
feedback and neutralises problematic information (a sort of censorship).
The member follow an unquestioning belief in the inherent morality of the group (ignoring other morality consideration),
applying, also, negative stereotyping to outsiders (out-group) and opponents, and those who propose a change.
About this they apply a direct pressure on dissenters to conform and reach consensus, so that any minority views are suppressed;
they also employ self-censorship to suppress any personal objectives, concern or areas of disagreement.
They create an illusion of unanimity, masking every underlying divisions, and build a system of leader defenders, information's
filters and opposition deflecters.
Preventing message mistakes:

• Don't assume knowledge or awareness (non dare per scontato la conoscenza o la consapevolezza): for example don't
use abbreviation that only you know.
• Take the receiver seriously: for example study its background in order to find a way to communicate with it.
• Define your terms: don't use an incomprehensible language (like jargon).
• Deliver the message skillfully: for example use multiple channels and encoding or secure appropriate feedback.
• Consider the audience's
• Use the right tone that matches the situation you are talking into.
(20 apr) AUDIENCE: Everyone who receive your message is your audience.
Communicating involves the translation of your thought and ideas nto words; speaking or writing involves sharing your
perspective with others.
Communication requires our constant attention, maintenance (manutenzione) and effort (sforzo).
AMBIGUITY: When we say words we put them togheter in grammatically correct sentences, but grammar is not enough.
In order to avoid ambiguity (a non-sense message) we need to pay attention to the language too; how do we do this?
• Awareness: The ability to be conscious of events and stimuli (the way we take in informations, give it order and assign
it meaning).
• Perspective: A frame of mind,formed from experiences and education across lifetime
Something that seem like a small intervention can have cascading effects on things we think of as stable or fixes including
extroversion, openness to new experience, and resilience.
More and more research is suggesting that far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and
dynamic thing that changes over the life span and is shaped by experience.
SELF: One's own sense of individuality, motivations and personal characteristic.

The concept of “self” is important for 2 reasons: first we have to know ourselves to interact with others and second the other
people are a sort of selves too so we need to know them to interact.
Self is made of Attitude (immediate disposition toward a concept or a object, it can change easily and frequently), Behaviours
(manifestation of how we feel), Beliefs (ideas based on previous experiences and convictions or faith, may be not based on

logic or facts) and Values (core concepts and ideas of what we consider good or bad).
Attitudes leads to Behaviours that leads to beliefs, that leads to Values that leads back to attitudes.
Self can turn into Self-Image (how you see yourself and how you would describe yourself to others) Self-Esteem (how you
feel about yourself) and Self-Concept (your central identity and set of beliefs about who you are and what you are capable of
accomplishing).
Self-fulfiling prophecy: This perspective show the circle that passe between the belief and the reality: we have a belief of the
future that leads our action, these actions may or may not confirm the original belief and so the circle begins again.
PERCEPTION: Some researcher us to refer this term to Preunderstanding and Convenctions: the first refer to a set of
expectations from previous experience that we apply to a new problem or situation; the second refers to the the customary
(consuetudine) forms and configurations of communication that members expect.
Selective perception: is the personal filtering of what we see and hear so as to suit our own needs; much of this process is
psychological and often unconscious, but simply are bombarded with too much stmuli everyday to pay equal attention to
everything so we pick and choose according to our needs.
The process of selection follow 3 stages: the Exposure (both information we choose to pay attention to and information that
we choose to ignore or that is unavailable to us), the Attention (focusing on one stimulus and tuning out a competing stimulus)
and the Retention (chose to remember one stimulus over to another).
PERCEPTUAL STRATEGIES:
• Become an active perceiver: seek out as much informations as possible in order to expand your understandings.
• Recognize each person's unique frame of reference.
• Recognize that people, situations and object change in order to improve your communication.
• Become aware of the role perception plays in communication in order to improve intercultural communication.
• Keep an open mind.
• Check your perception by learning to observe.
STAGE: The Stage refers to the setting, scene and context of the communication interacrion, and can be equally applied to
written or oral communication.
GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: Always focus on how big is the audience, what are their background (gender, agen
jobs, education and/or interest), what and ho much they know about your topic, how to present you material and how much
time you need and you have to present it.
PLAIN ENGLISH (TIPS): It's use of clear and concise English language, that avoids unnecessary jargon or complication.
In order to do this you need to use fewer word and replace word with picture without sacrificing the content. 1,26
METAPHORES: Metaphores are words or phrases that mean one thing but are use to describe something else (but emphasize
their similar qualities; they help to capture the attention of the audience, create connection with other people and simplify
complex ideas.
Examples: “time is money” (to buy some time), “money is water” (to float a loan), “it is a stable financial situation (to keep
one's head), “believing is drinking” (drinking the kool-aid), “to go under” (to fail), “to get up to speed” (moving at a desirable
pace) “low hanging fruit” (something easy to get for everyone) “deadwood” (something that is no longer productive).
ORGANISATIONAL STORIES: Stories exist everywhere, the significance of narrative data lies not just in their richness
and new universal availability (disponibilità) but in the fact that they are the same kind of data that organizational members
use to plan, enact (emanare), interpret, and evaluate their own actions and those of others (Pentland 1999).
STORYTELLING: Telling stories instead of just listing facts is one of the best strategies you can use in order to be a good
public speaker and a bit better communicator in general.
Stories impact in the audience feelings (engage your audience) and stick longer in people minds: people remember most how
they were feeling when you were talking, not just what you were saying.
Stories are practical examples because they are short and effective, help to build an approach of teach and leaderships, help
pass tacity knoledge, improve your memory and attention and establish norms and values.
Example: In 2002 some scientists analyzed the rhetorical (how they create understanding and make connection with the
audience) and discursive analytic (how language is used in life contexts) Exxonmobil's corporate public relationships.
They took a bunch of publications and discovered that it wasn't a kind of advertising of the product but a way to connect with
the audience.
(22 apr) TRICKS: There are several parameters to tell a story (business stories):
• Tell your audience what the setting is: in order for the story to be engaging you have to answer some crucial
questions → who is telling the story? Why is the story being told? what are the parameters? Where and when is the
story being placed?
• Use the form of a story to present your topic and anecdotes to illustrate your point.
• Use storytelling techniques to trigger story effect in order to engage your audience in a more much powerful way.

• Try to be authentic to show you are a sincere person and an open book.
• Have a clear outcome: if you tell the story it has to involve in a topic, has to have a meaning.
• Involve others: if people feel involved in the story will participate more actively in it.
COMMUNICATION FAILURE: Communication failures are a very common feature of organizational life.
Researcher have found 5 particular themes that impact organisationa communication:
• Formal structures: The organisation structure is tipically presented in the form of an organisational chart (grafico),
showing the upward, downward and lateral connection between named individuals, job roles or departments.
It help managers to allocate tasks and responsibilities between defined funcions (ex. Marketing, finance,
production...) and provides the basis for a clear chain of command.
Formal structures are usually quite unchangeable and can affect communication.
• Hierarchies (gerarchie): It's a kind of distance between people, with varying degrees of steepness (ripidità →
distanza difficile da attenuare) and rigidity; it organize people into layers or levels, according to grade and role.
Hierarchy contributes to distinctive patterns of internal and external communication.
• Top Management Teams: CEOs nees to delivercompelling messages to internal and external stakeholder, but also to
be open to feedback on strategically, important and urgent issues
A CEO is not able to manage all communication process, so it assign a Top Managment Teams (TMT) to the
communication role.
In turn TMTs tend to have their own purposes and interests so they may represent an obstacle to a good
communication
• Organisational culture: They are something that tend to develop communication practices, following distinctive
culture that are both reproduced through communication practices (including initiation rites, myths and symbols).
Problem with sub-cultural divisions is that tend to divide them, so it may lead to internal miscommunication.
• Informal Grapevine: It consist on overlapping (sovrapposizione), informal networks of friends ad colleagues who
circulate information around an organisation, often during lunch breaks or social events.
It can be very effective but inefficient because: it is faster and require no investment in communication infrastructure
but he can be counterproductive because
(27 apr) 8 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION (REMINDING): We defined 8 different elements of

communication: these elements occurs in both written and oral communication (attenzione: written communication has non-
verbal messages too, such as the used channel or the words used).
ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION ORAL APPLICATION WRITTEN APPLICATION

SOURCE: Creates and communicates a Jay make a telephone call to Heather. Jay write an e-mail to Heather.
message.
RECEIVER: Receives the message from Heather listen to Jay. Heather read's Jay's message.
the source.
MESSAGE: It's the stimulus or meaning Jay ask Heather to partecipate in a conference call at 3:15.
produced by the source for the receiver.
CHANNEL: It's the way a message
travels between the source and the Telephone. E-mail.
receiver.
FEEDBACK: It's the message the Heather says yes. Heather reply with an E-mail saying yes.
receiver sends in response to the source.
ENVIRONMENT: It's the physical Heather is travelling by train on a Heather is at her desk when she receives
atmosphere where the communication business trip when she receives Jay's Jay's e-mail.
occurs. phone call.
CONTEXT: involves the psychological Heather expect Jay to send an E-mail Heather expect Jay to dial and connect
expectations of the source and receiver. with the call-in information for the call. the call. Jay's expect Heather to check her
Jay expect to do so, and does. e-mail for the call-in information so that
she can join the call.
INTERFERENCE: Also known as Heather calls in at 3:15, but she has
NOISE, it's anything that blocks or distort missed the call because she fortgot thath Heather waits for a phone call from Jay at
the communication process. she is in a differente time zone (fuso 3:15 but he doesn't call.
orario) from Jay
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION: Gene Fowler says: “Writing its easy: all you do is stare at a blanket sheet of paper until drops
of blood form on you forehead.”
Written communication has 3 important characteristics: it's Dynamic (the exchange is not static,), it's Asynchronous (it occurs at
different times) and (anticipate the reader's need interpretation, and likely response).
It's also important to talk about Genre and Medium: Genre is the formal writing the form of your writing with set functions
determined by its social need, has general expectations determined by what informations your audience wants and needs (es a
business letter, memo, report etc.); Medium is the way in which a piece of writing is delivered, it requires considerations to make

about what to include and how to include it (es. Email versus a mailed paper copy, etc.).
The easy part of business writing is the use of patterns or formula depending on the genre, the Conventions: certain documents
have specific formulas of preparation in order to organize your discourse better.
Reading and writing: David McCullough says: “Writing is thinking, to write well is to think clearly and that's why is so hard.”
Reading it's important in order to be a good writer: reading expands memorization, improve the lexicon and knowledge about
specific topics and events.
CRITICAL THINKING: In addition to select the information carefully, it's important to have a Critical Thinking: this is the
intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief
and action. In its exemplary form.
It is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions (clarity, precision, consistency, relevance, sound
of evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth and fairness.
Critical thinking requires us to examine a lot of things: Purpose, Problems, Question-at-issue, Assumptions, Concepts, Empirical
groundings, Reasonings leading to conclusions, Implications and Consequences, Objections from alternative viewpoints and
Frame of reference.
There are 8 key point in order to have a good critical thinking:
• Stepping back from immediate personal feelings.
• Examining data from different angles.
• Checking the accuracy of information.
• Checking the logic of the argument.
• Looking for possible flaws in argument.
• Understanding why other people se it differently.
• Checking statistics and other empirical data.
• Checking undeclared assumptions.
• Reaching informed conclusions.
A well cultiivated critical thinker: raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely; gather and assesses
(valuta) relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively comes to well reasoned conclusions and solutions,
testing them against relevant criteria and standards; thinks open-mindedly whitin alternative systems of thought, recognizing and
assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications and practical consequences; last but not leas communicates effectively with
other in figuring out solutions to complex problems.
GOOD WRITING: Good writing, according to Edward P. Bailey, has to follow 3 rules: Follow the rules (be able to use grammar
and vocabulary correctly and also pay attention to the pattern) and must be Easy to Read (use simple sentences) in order to Attract
the reader (the reader must be interested).
So to begin writing you have to Organize your thought, Analyze your audience and Be clear and concise; when followed this tips
you can start writing.
Yogi Berra says: “If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there”; so in order to write well the purpose must
follow the outcome (be focused on the result and be careful to not confuse the subject with the result).
So organizing your thoughts is imperative: you can organize it linearly or freely (free associations), these are 2 different thinking
styles.
ORGANIZATIONAL METHODS: There are a few organizational method that are frequently used in order to organize your
thought: Alfabetical Method, Chronological Method, Deductive Method and Inductive Method (using examples).
In addition you can use an Outline: an Outline is an executive summary that provides an overview of your intended subject matter,
helps you set the direction of what you're writing, forces you to weed out (estirpare) unnecessary word and stay focused on your
goal, and helps to list all supporting details or facts. 1:23
SYSTEMS IN COMMUNICATION: There are 2 main systems of Communication:

• Cognate Strategies: these are known as ways of promoting understanding, can be applied in public speaking but also in
your writing; it includes several components: Tone (choice of words and body language), Emphasis (the way you
eighlight specific part of your discourse), Engagement (the it's the way the speaker build a relationship with the
audience), Clarity (the way you make your discourse understandable), Conciseness (including only the necessary
messages), Arrangement (the way and order you present your discourses), Credibility (the way you show yourself as
worthy of trust) Expectation (what your audience expect from you before you say something) Reference (a kind of
examples).
• Rhetorical Elements: Cognate Strategies can be split in 3 groups to form the Rhetorical Elements: Logos (it refers to
logic → Clarity, Conciseness and arrangement), Ethos (it refers to credibility → Credibility, Expectation and
References) and Pathos (it refers to emotions → Tone, Emphasis and Engagement).
EVALUATE AN APPEAL: It's fundamental for a speaker, writer, or listener, to be able to recognize how people depends on the
rhetorical elements in order to communicate: truth is that a lot of people use these in order to lie or to obtain something.
• Evaluate appeal to Ethos; When we evaluate an appeal to Ethos we see how successfully a speaker or writer establishes
authority or credibility with its intended audience.
• Evaluate appeal to Logos: When you evaluate an appeal to logos you evaluate how logical the argument is and how well-
supported it is in terms of evidence.
• Evaluate appeal to Pathos: When we evaluate the pathos you askin how the speaker or write arouses interest and sympathy.
So, Fallacies appear when definitions, interferences and facts are questioned (attenzione: persuasive does not automatically mean

based on a fallacy).
(RHETORIC: According to Aristotele Rhetoric is the art of seeing the available means of persuasion; he decribed 3 types of
persuasive speech: Forensics (or judicial rhetoric, it establishes facts and judgements about the past), Epideictic (or demonstrative
rhetoric, it makes proclamations about present situations), Symbouleutikon (or deliberative rhetoric, it's the way to accomplish
changes and focuses on the future).
According to Aristotle there are 3 persuasive appeals:
• Ethos: It is how you convince your audience of your credibility.
• Logos: t's the use of logic and reason (to use factual knowledge to convince the audience); problems appears when using
false information to manipulate people.
• Pathos: It appeals to emotions, it's irrational and unpredictable.
These rethorical appeals are powerful tools and it's very important to know your audience and purpose in order to chose the right one
to use.
YOUR READER EXPECTATION: Here are some question involved in the the evaluation of you reader's expectation:
• Who is the audience (age, sex, present job etc.)? → when we know the audience we know which appeal they are most
suggestived to.
• What does the audience do with the information? → It determines what information they need.
• What information does the audience need?
• Does the audience know little or much about the information?
• Does the audience need proof?
• What does the reader prefer to be addressed?
• What form of business communication does the reader use most?
• What is the reader's demeanor (atteggiamento) – conservative or moderate?
• At what level of authority is the reader? Can he or she act on your letter?
• What matter most to the reader in a written document? Does he/she prefer brevity to details? Does he/she have disdain for
unwarranted attachments? Or does he/she prefer to have everything possible sent to him/her?
• Does the reader have a sense of humor?
• What type of business language is the reader accustomed to (technical, medical, legalese etc.)?
RESPECT READER'S TIME CONSTRAINTS: It's important to respect the reader's constraints (assume that everyone is very very
busy).
If you constraint people to listening to something unnecessary for a long time they will start ignoring you.
The strategy is to prove quickly that you have something valuable to say for them (not just for you), waste no time, write things in an
enjoyable way and use a tone that make you likeable, so that your readers will want to spend time with you and your messages.
Analyze your audience: Warre Buffet says: “When writing Berkshire Hathaway's annual report, I pretend that i'm talking to my sister,
I have no trouble picturing them:Though highly intelligent, they are not experts in accounting or finance.
They will understand plain english, but jargon may puzzle them.
My goal is simply to give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our position were reserved.
To succeed I don't need to be Shakespeare ; I must though, have a sincere desire to inform.”
Admitting that not all the audience is made of experts, it's very important to inform before to seem knowledgeable.
Sometime we have to write not only to a large audience but also to Multiple ones: it's very important to make sure that different
audience understand the same messages so you have to universalize your speech (helping with attachments pr example).
You can analyze your audience dividing it in 4 types: Sensor (Action oriented, competitor and assertive), Thinker (Process oriented,
they like to organize and gather information), Feeler (they can be oriented to teaming), Intuitors (they kinda combine all of the
previous categories, plus they like to provide ideas).
STYLE IN WRITTEN COMMUNICATION: How do we evaluate linguistic contents? There are 2 way: the first is to look at
Words (Structural Evaluation) which are series of symbols that communicate meaning, strung together in specific patterns that are
combined to communicate complex and compound meanings (nouns, verbs, adjective, adverbs, prepositions, and articles are the
building blocks); the second way is to look at Styles which are way to look at language from a goals prospective (goals means what is
this writing for), specific documents adress stated (or unstated) goals and have rules, customs and formats that are anticipated and
expected.
There are 3 principal kinds of styles:
• Colloquial: The informal writing style, similar to spoken conversation, may include slang figure of speech, broken syntax
ecc.; it takes a personal tone (like speaking in front of the audience).
• Casual: It involves everyday words, the emphasys is on the communication interaction and less about hierarchy and rank.
• Formal: the most formal style, that emphasyze hierarchy and social rank, avoiding semplification.
Some colloquial terms:

• Y'all:“you all”
• Buzz off: “go away!”
• Being blue: Being sad
• Gonna and Wanna: “going to” and “want to”
• To go nuts: “to go crazy”
• To be a Chicken: “to be scared”
• Ain't: “is not”
• Ace: “really good”

• Cheers: in place of “thank you”
• To take a rain check: “to cancel plans” until a later date
• To freak out: “to get worked up” (agitarsi)
• What's the Buzz?: “is there any news to report?”
• Bae: “boyfriend”, “girlfriend”, “Spouse”, or any very close friend.
FORMAL VS INFORMAL:
FORMAL INFORMAL
Used in academic writing/contact letter Used in non-academic writing
Unsed to unfamiliare people (strangers or someone you Use to familiar people (family or closed friends.
particularly respect, like teachers or bosses).
No Slang or colloqualism Contractions, slang and/or colloquialism
Complete sentences Single words, phrases and fragments.
Passive voice Active voice
Latinate verbs Phrasal verbs
Linking words (parole di collegamento) Little use of conjunctions
Compoud sentences with phrases and clauses Simple sentences in conversational order (subject-verbs-
object)
He, she, they in reference to reader You in reference to reader.
TONE: Tone is how the author feels (the writers attitudes on qhat i'm writing), the Mood is how the piece of literature makes
the reader feel.
“Tone in writing refers to the writer's attitude toward the reader and the subject of the message affects the reader just as one's
tone of voice affects listener in everyday exchanges.” (Ober 88)
Tone is one of the most permanent paralinguistic features of business writing: because we are not communicating face-to-face
we have to make use of tone in order to make our feeling understandable.
To make sure our message has an appropriate tone we to answer 3 questions: “why am I writing this document?”, “who am I
writing to and what do I want them to understand?” and “what kind of tone should I use?”.
Her is some guidelines about tone: be confident (not “you must agree that I am qualified for this position” but “my
qualifications in the areas of.... meet your job requirment”), be courteous (cortese) and sincere (not you didn't read the
instructions carefully, thus your system has shut down” but “the sstem may automatically shut down if any installation errors
occurs”) use appropriate emphasis (“smoking will no long be permitted in the building, the committee on employee health and
safety reached this decision after considering the evidence from researchers and physicians...”) and subordination (“The
committee on employee health and safety has finished considering evidence, and they have reached the decision that smoking
will no longer be permitted”), use non-discriminatory language (guarda sopra per alcuni esempi e tips a riguardo), stress the
benefit for the reader (not “i am processing your order tomorrow” but “your order will be available in two weeks”) and write at
an appropriate level of difficulty (do not use complex passages or terms that the reader will not understand, accordingly do not
use too simple terms or insufficient examples if the reader is capable of understanding your writing).
(8 mag) PLANNING THE WRITING PROCESS:
AMBIGUITY: We already spoke about the fact that language is often full of Ambiguity: it's almost impossible that 2 person see
the world in the same way, ambiguity happens when the same word or sentence has different meanings.
How do we overcome ambiguity? We can do it focusing on rules (the grammatical disposition of words) and contexts
(circumstances).
Quick reminder about Denotation and Connotations: the first is the specific meaning of the words that we find in the
dictionary, the second is some kind of evaluation or appreciation of that word (eg. We have 3 words: Inquisitive, curious and
nosy; the denotation is the same, a person who like to find out new information and thinghs; the connotations is different,
inquisitive and curious have a positive meaning but nosy don't).
SOME CONNOTATIONS
FAVORABLE NEUTRAL UNFAVORABLE
Relaxed Inactive Lazy
Prudent Timid Cowardly
Modest Shy Mousy
Time-texted Old Out-of-date
Dignified Reserved Stiff-naked
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Persevering Persistent Stubborn
Up-to-date New Newfangled
Thrifty Conservative Miserly
Self-confident Proud Conceited
Inquisisitive Curious Nosy
WORDS TO AVOID: There are words that you should avoid in business writing because of their negative connotations:
cannot, damage, do not, error, fail, impossible, little value, loss, mistake, not, problem, refuse, stop, unable to, hardly,
scarcely, unfortunately...
It's preferable to use words with a more positive connotation, in order to accentuate what something is instead of
something is not (what something can instead of what something cannot).
E.g. Negative: Penquot sheets are not skimpy, losely woven sheets ordinarily found in this price class (I fogli di
Penquot non sono fogli striminziti e tessuti in modo irregolare che si trovano normalmente in questa fascia di prezzo);
Positive: Penquot sheets are woven186 threads to the square inch for durability and, even after 3-inch hems, measure a
generous 72 by 108 inches (I fogli di Penquot sono tessuti 186 fili per pollice quadrato per una maggiore durata e,
anche dopo orli da 3 pollici, misurano un generoso 72 per 108 pollici).
Another way to make your discourse more positive is to pay attention to the topic positioning: it's better to place good
news in positions of high emphasis (beginning or ending of paragraphs, letter, and even sentences), and bad new in
secondary positions (in the center); what's in the middle is usually less noticeable.
Also positive paragraphs should be longer than the negative ones.
BYPASSING: It involves the misunderstanding that occurs when the receiver completely misses the source's intended
meaning.
William Lutz says: “It is precisely because each of us see and experiences the world differently that language becomes
our most important means for coming to some kind of agreement on our individual experiences, on how we see the
world.” 56
To avoid bypassing you should: be a person minded and not a wordminded (disagree with the dictionary and agree qith
the person's background); query and paraphrase (summarise speaker and then ask clarifying questions); be approachable
(be open to verbal and nonverbal feedback); and be sensitive to contexts (be mindful of the situation in which the word
was used).
LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY: Any words that we say can become a legal responsibility especially in writing (that is
quotable, spreadable and uncontrollable): avoid False claim, Defamation Slander (calunnia), Libel (diffamazione),
Calumny, and Plagiarism (plagio).
Legal responsibility affect you and your company too.
CHECKLIST FOR PLANNING BUSINESS MESSAGES

• Determine your general purpose ( are you trying to inform, persuade entertain.... the reader?);
• Determine your specific purpose (the desired outcome);
• Make sure your purpose is realistic;
• Make sure your timing is appropriate;
• Make sure your sources are credible;
• Make sure the message reflects positively on your business;
• Determine audience size;
• Determine audience composition;
• Determine audience knowledge and awareness of topic;
• Anticipate probable responses;
• Select the correct channel
• Make sure the information provided is accurate, ethical and pertinent.
COMMUNICATION CHANNELS: It's one of the components of communication scheme that we talked about some time ago.
CHANNEL STRENGHTS WEAKNESSES EXPECTATIONS WHEN TO CHOOSE

Very fast Informal Infomral use among peers
at similar level within an
IM (Istant Message) or Good for rapid Not suitable for large organization
TEXT MESSAGE exchanges of small amounts of information Quick response
amounts of information You need a fast,
Abbreviations lead to inexpensive connection
Inexpensive misunderstangs with a collegue over a
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small issue and limited
amount of information
Fast May hit "send"
prematurely
Good for relatively fast
exchanges of May be overlooked or You need to communicate
informations deleted without being but time is not the most
read Normally a response important consideration
"Subject" line allows is expected within 24
E-MAIL compilation of many "Reply to all" error hours although norms
messages on one very by situation and
subject or project "Forward" error organizational culture You need to send
attachments (provided file
Easy to distribute to Large attachments may size is not too big)
multiple recipients cause the e-mail to be
caught in recipient's
Inexpensive spam filter.
May get filed or thrown
Formal away unread You need to inform,
Specific formats persuade, deliver bad
LETTER Cost and time involved associated with news or negative
Letterhead represents in printing, stuffing, specific purposes message, and document
your company and adds sealing, afixing the communication
credibility postage, and travel
through the postal
system
Signicant time for Requires extensive Specific formats for You need to document the
preparation and resarch and specific purposes, relationship(s) between
REPORT (rapporto) production dcumentation generally reports are large amounts of data to
to inform inform an internal or
external audience
PROPOSAL (proposta) Significant time or Requires extensive Specific formats for You need to persuade an
preparation and research and specific purposes, audience with complex
production documentation generally proposal arguments and data
are to persuade
Official but less formal Memos sent through e- Normally use
than a letter mail can get deleted internally in an
without review organization to You need to communicate
MEMO (promemoria) communicate a general message within
Clearly shows who sent directives from organization.
it, when and to whom Attechments can get managment on policy
removed by spam and procedure, or
filters documentation
BUSINESS LETTERS: It may seem a communication channel of the past, but they're still used.
Business letters are brief messager that are often outside the organization; they are often printed on letterhead paper, and
represent the business or organization in one or two pages.
It's a one-way and non-interruptible asynchronous channel, and provides a permanent record.
It can increase your profitability (e.g. by getting key costumers to renew large orders, or persuading service providers to charge
you less for repeat business; it can also create goodwill (buona volontà).
TYPES: Business letters have all kinds of purposes and types:

• Promotional (marketing department → Prospective customer): Increase brand awareness and stimulate sales.
• Contractual (Purchasing department → Supplier) : Establish clearly defined contract terms.
• Credit control (Account department → Debtor Customer) : Speed up customer payments (politely).
• Supplier payments (Accounts department → Debtor supplier) : Avoid conflict over firm's late payment.
• Adjustment/Complaints (Customer services → Customer): Keep customer loyalty by prompt action.
• Recruitment (Human resources → Prospective employee): Inform and attract applicants.
• Employment contract (Human resources → Employee): Provide clear and accurate information on pay and conditions.
• Disciplinary (Human resources → Employee) : Inform, meet legal obligations and encourage behaviour change
• Redundancy (Human resources → Employee): Inform, meet legal obligations and provide appropriate support.
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• Legal (Law firm → Client): Inform client about the progress of a case.
It's important to use the correct format (business letter are very used), use direct and personal language, focus on the reader, mind
your grammar (including punctuation) and avoid hedging and equivocating.
HEDGING: It's a particular type of language that we use (also called vague language), it's normally used to not give a direct
answer (to hide something or protect themself).; it can also be used to be less direct and more polite.
Hedging includes Modal verbs, Certain Verbs (appears to, looks like,suggest, tend to...), Quantifiers (a little...), Adverb of degree
(fairly, pretty, quite...), Adverbial Phrases of degree (to a certain degree, to some extent...), Other Adverb or adverbial phrases
(possibly, in all probability, sometimes, not always...), Adjectives (possible, unlikely, probable...) and other expressions (the thing
is, we were hoping, I thought, I was wondering...).
Too much hedging can become an habit and make you appear non-confident.
(6 mag) PAGE LAYOUT: British people are very conventional, especially when talking of letters (who are a printed form of
communication): that's why letters, in particular business ones, follow a specific structure.
The basic framework of business letter is pretty logical, so there are some specific strategies in order to write an effective one:
• Heading: it establishes the sender and often includes address and date
• Introduction: it establishes the purpose of the letter.
• Body: it articulates the message.
• Conclusion: it restates the main point and may include a call to action.
• Signature line: it sometimes includes the contact information.
So a basic letter, from top to bottom, includes: printed letterhead, date, receiver's name and address, greeting/intruction, subject
heading, central paragraphs, close, sender's signature and the sender's name and job title.
[look for the example in the slide L11]
GREETINGS:
• When you know the person well → Dear [person name] - Hi [Person name]
• When you know the person's name → Dear Mr/Ms [Lastname] - Dear Mr/Ms [Firtsname Lasname] – Dear [Firtsname
Lastname]-
• When the person you're writing to has a PhD → Dear [PhD] [Lastname] (e.g Dear Dr. Colins)
• When you don't know the person's gender → Dear [Firstname Lastname]
• When you don't have the contact person → Dear [Job title] – Dear [name of the company] – Greeting/Greetings [name]
(informally) – Hello – Hello [name] – Dear Sir or Madam (this is outdated so avoid if possible) – To whom it may
concern (use only if you have no other workable options)
• Greetings to avoid: Good day – Good morning or afternoon – Hi – Hi there – Hey – Hey there
BODY: It establishes the main context (may include a reference number or a short explanatory heading, provide a lonk to
previous correspondence and contain the explanation of your reasons for writing) and deliver the main message (inter-related
points in logical order); it also state any action required by the receiver (give a brief explanation of why the action is important
and/or urgent, include clear and realistic deadlines and check that the receiver has the authority and capacity to act as required).
CLOSE:
• Simplest most useful: Sincerely – Regards – Yous truly – Your sincerely
• Slightly more personal: Best regards – Cordially – Yours respectfully
• More personal (only use when appropriate to the letter) : Warm regards – Best wishes – With appreciation
• Letter closing to avoid: Always – Cheers – Love – Take care – XOXO
SOME RULES: When starting a letter at first you have to ask yourself: who is going to receive the letter? What is your
relationship to this person or organization? Are ther related factors you should take into account (e.g pre existing issues or
different cultures)?
Then you have to pay attention to the length (necessary information, everything that is essential, repetitions), the use of words
(clear and concise sentences, the possible misinterpretation of the letter, it's also useful to imagine if the roles were reversed) and
the tone (what the letter is trying to achieve, and the appearance of the tone itself).
Obiously you should be clear, concise, specific and respectful: each word should contribute to your purpose, each paragraph
should focus on one idea, the parts of the letter should form a complete message and the letters should be free of errors.
WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE: Written correspondence is a way to promote communication and clarity in your everyday
tasks: the purpose of business communication, writing in particular, is to come to point of your ideas.
There are 2 ways to organize the principles for written correspondence: answering the 6 “W questions” (who? What? Where? When,
How? Why?) or approaching through ethos, logos, and pathos.
Very often written correspondence begin with a General Purpose or a Thesis Statement (in academic writing TS is a sort of
introduction); general purposes and thesis statement should: be declarative statement, be a complete sentence, use specific language
(not vague generalities), be a single idea, and reflect the consideration of the audience.
There are many principles in order to organize your letter [guarda slide L12], the most important are the chronological one and the
Outline (traccia).
The thesis statement is usually inserted in the introduction of the letter, in the body of the letter there are the main points organized
into paragraphs, and in the conclusion there is a summary of the main points (above in the body).
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PARAGRAPHS: Organizing your writing in paragraphs is fundamental; paragraphs are a sort of idea boxes.
Every paragraphs should have one central idea and generally are structure into 3 components: the topic sentence, the body sentence
and the conclusion sentence.
Paragraphs should be made of 5 to 7 sentences in order to maintain it short (not too long); there is also and old rule that said that a
paragraphs should be made of only 3 sentences (new standard adjusted this rule).
Victoria E. McMillin says: “ Paragraphs are not just chunks of text; at their best they are logically constructed passages organized
around a central idea often expressed in a topic sentence. A writer constructs, orders, and connects paragraphs as a means of guidig
the reader from one topic to the next, along a logical train of thought.”
SENTENCES: Sentences can be Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative and Exclamatory.

Their structure can be Simple (it has the 2 basic parts that constitute a sentence), Compound (independent clauses that could stand
alone), Complex (independent clauses, thich can stand on its own combined with a fragment – not a sentence – or a dependent clause
which, if it were joined to the independent clause would not make any sense) or Compound Complex ((it combines a mix of
independent and dependent clauses, at least one of the clauses must be dependent).
TRANSITIONS: Transitions are words and phrases that link ideas: they clear the way for comparisons and help readers draw
conclusions.
E-MAILS TIPS: When you're writing an email you have to be aware of the fact that your receiver receive a lot of emails everyday so
your one must be more noticeable than any other.
In order to be noticed you must be clear and concise (every word should have a purpose [guarda esempi di sostituzione nella slide
L12]), remember netiquette (rules that keep good relationships between internet users), get to the point (your message should be
easily understandable and direct), avoid redundancy (don't write meaningless word related to the message), write a short but
informative subject line, copy people judiciously (don't send the same email with same characteristics to different people), and use
standard punctuation and capitalization.
INQUIRY LETTERS: Inquiry letters are used to ask about something (inquire → chiedere informazioni).
The basic structure of an inquiry letter is to state what you want, who you are and why you are asking for it and then end with a brief
“thank you”.
SOME NETIQUETTE: Here are som netiquette (when writing an email):

• Read you email when you know you can act on it;
• Use a conversational tone; don't use email if you need an immediate response;
• Don't use email to deliver bad news;
• Encourage feedback; keep it simple;
• No venting in anger; remember that email is not private;
• Avoid gossip;
• Don't email a quick note to a person “sitting four feet from you”;
• Don't email last-minute changes or cancellations.
(11 mag) PRESENTING AN ARGUMENT: In business not always inform our interlocutors of opportunities and good news:
sometimes the key, for us, is to convince them or to defend our position, therefore we enter in something called argumentative
writing or talking, where we highlight an Argument.
We can approach the argument with the classical rhetoric elements (Ethos, Logos and Pathos) plus a new one: Kairos.
• Ethos: Whenever you approach an argumentative essay or an argumentative writing or speaking you can touch upon essays
in terms of providing Evidence that has to be Supportive (it need to be representative and and information should be
authentic), Relevant (the given example should be pertinent to the claim), and Effective (the quality of your evidence is
much more important than the quantity so you should choose only the best ones).
• Pathos: Then you should deal with Emotions, that can be defined as psychological and physical responses to stimuli that we
experience as feelings: individuals can be motivated, manipulated or even exploited by their emotions.
Though, constant emotional appeal can end up impeding the audience's ability to receive the message.
• Logos: Logic concerns reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity (something that's based on
principles and truths) and plays an important role in persuation.
• KAIROS: It refer to a timeliness (tempestività) of an argument: often for an AD or an argument to be successful It need
also to come at the right time.
STRATEGIES: The strategies for an effective memo writing are:
• Always think about your reader (what fits the situation).
• Use parallelism for consistency (tryna be homogeneous).
• Try not to overemphasize (think about only the key points).
• Keep your memos to one page, 2 max.
• Write a second letter or memo for separate or related issues.
• Don't make any changes that affect the readability of your letter.
• Use boxes, tables, charts, or graphs to support your point.
• Choose from these commonly used formatting tools.
INVESTIGATION REPORT: Not every piece of business writing require research but a lot of them do: sometime we
can't answer specific questions without knowing the topic first.
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Some challenges require to investigate the matter,. In order to do this you should consider 4 step analysis:
• Analize purpose and audience: So you know the desired result of the information needed to get them,
• Write a Purpose Statement: Write a purpose statement it's necessary to focus your affords and then focus the
reader.
• Select the facts your audience needs:
• Organize your points into an outline: Turning the facts into useful information.
PURPOSE STATEMENT: After analyzing the purpose of the whole document (first step), you proceed to write a five-part
purpose statement (second step): 1-type of the document; 2-what the document does; 3-what information the audience
needs; 4-the audience; 5-what the audience does with the information.
Purpose Statement is a sort of introduction to the investigation report (e.g. this report describes 3 energy-saving tips
homeowners can use to reduce their utility bills.
Also verbs are important in purpose statement: Promise (a promise coming from a piece of paper is not as persuasive as a
promise made a person or an organization with a reputation to defend, so make sure it's a promise you can maintain);
Describe (it's for an audience who knows a lot and just needs a description); Explain (the audience knows little and needs
explanations); Summarize (expectation → not many details); Details (expectation → many details).
The use of certain verbs define the tone of the letter (e.g. “the letter informs” or “presents” is neutral; “the letter notifies”
sounds official and infers that the reader no has the responsibility to act: “the letters informs” or “warns” has a forceful
tone).
ASSEMBLE A P.S.: Sometimes what the audience does with the information is complicated.
Despite you have to follow the 5 steps when writing a PS, there's no need of writing them in the correct order.
After you have assembled your purpose statement you need to do your research and select facts (the evidence we can know
by study or experience) in order to transform them in information (fact organized to be useful).
NB: researching facts and selecting facts are not the same thing.
One of the tricks that you can use to research is the Mind Mapping technique; the most important topics of this one are:
Benefits, Planning, Collaboration, Productivity and Creativity; mind-mapping helps to organize your researches into
productive areas.
ORGANIZE YOUR POINTS: At this point: write your points using short words in short sentences, Evaluate points to
eliminate irrelevancies and redundancies and order the points.
A point is an opinion or a general truth (not a mere fact); it organizes the facts, transforming mere facts into useful
information; a paragraph is a point supported by facts.
(13 mag) REPORTS: It's another style of business writing that can be used in anything, it's one of the most used written
communication systems.
When you begin approaching reports the first thing to do is to make sure to understand why you are writing and what you
report; then you do your best (in light of your background knowledge and initial research, to write a summary that
concisely states the problem, you solution, and why your solution will work or why it's preferable to alternatives.
Be careful to discern sources of relevant information and from these sources gather all the data and explanations that you
can; then synthesize relevant observations and inferences and throw out the rest.
Finally put your findings into report form and revise your summary to match your body text.
TYPES OF REPORTS:
• Executive briefing: You might to asked to report to your manager about some specific problems.
• Research results: You might report the results of something that your company has done.
• Regular update: You might report a daily routine check up on what's going on.
• Business proposal: You might write a report to comment a proposal made by your company or another company's
to your one.
KEY POINTS: Whatever your report is there are some common key points you need to consider:
• First of all, if it's possible, try to obtain clear specification for your report (which items really need to be included to meet
the needs of your audience, what is to be achieved in the report, who should be consulted, who will be reading it, how it
should be structure, the time frame for its completion...).
• Then you have to consider these 4 basic questions:
-What's the purpose? → primary plus any secondary aims, chose the type of language, think whether images are necessary.
-Who's the audience? → their ecisting knowledge and experience, their familiar language, their positive, negative or neutral
view on the issue that you are about to discuss.
-What's the context? → consider the wider settings in which your report is being prepared (is it urgent? Is it a routine
publication? Is there a template? Ecc.).
-What are the sources? → where are the sources of primary and secondary data that you will need to consult.
LAYOUT AND STRUCTURE: A report page, from top to to botton, usually has: a Header (name or ID), the name of the
organisation, the title of the report, the name of the subject, the course or the unit code, the person to whom the report is addressed,
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again the name of the sender and the ID and finally the date of completion.
ACCADEMIC DISSERTATION (tesi accademica) BUSINESS REPORT

Title page Title page
Abstract Executive summary
Contents page Contents page
Introduction Introduction
Literature review ---
Research methods ---
Findings Findings
Discussion ---
Conclusions Conclusions
Recommendations Recommendations
References ---
Appendices ---
Inside your dissertation or Business Report you have to use Sequencing: this is how you you produce a sort of chain of paragraphs
(one idea goes to the other) and this can be based on importance, urgency, date (chronology), from simple to complex, and from
global to specific.
Another way to make your writing more appreciable is using Signposting: This is a concise, informative headings, sub-headings, and
labels act as a well-lit signposts, guiding the reader through the report (also the contents page, index, glossaries, section, numbering,
typography, ecc.).
To finalize your reports it's a good idea to ask your colleagues to review and provide a feedback; if you are already working in groups
look out for variable grammar and writing style, incorrect, cross-references, inconsistent headings and labelling and grammatical and
spelling errors.
DRAFTING: A Draft (bozza) is a pre-written document that gives you an idea of what you are gonna write later or a document that
you are about to perfect later.
After you analyzed what you are gonna talk about you have to prepare to compose a draft (in order, not according to the organisation
of the document: a body, a conclusion, and an introduction; if necessary also an executive summary and an informative abstract).
WRITING THE DRAFT: When writing the body you should compose paragraphs by adding facts to support each point in your
sentence outline (you can cut facts later when you have the whole picture), it usually needs no more than five sentences to support a
point.
Outlines make documents more persuasive, your paragraphs begin with short and therefore easy-to-remember points (easy-to-
remember points are more persuasive than longer hard-to-remember ones).
Then you go to the conclusion, which is a simple formula (tell the reader what happens next or who does what next): the conclusion
usually recalls the purpose statement, specifically the outcome or what the audience does with the information (e.g. this message
inform you of my itinerary so we can schedule a meeting – this conclusion recalls the purpose statement. Please inform me by retur
e-mail the time and place of the meeting).
Finally you can draft the introduction which helps the reader to understand your document: the 2 mandatory parts are the purpose
statement and the plan of the document; also there are 5 optional parts that you can include:
• Background: it helps the reader to put the needed information in context; in this part you can discuss the underlying work,
significance, or situation addressed by the information in the body.
• Audience: you can use the introduction to provide further details or make assumptions about the audience.
• Sources and Methods: they tell the readers how you searched the literature, performed experiments, consulted survey, or
references to other documents.
• Keywords: it might help the reader to understand not familiars words, concepts and jargon.
• Limitations: They are practical realities to manage (not ignore), if you have a limitation to your document or your argument
acknowledge the limitation in the introduction.
NB: Do not put your recommendation or need-to-know points in the introduction, they belongs to the body.
EDITING AND REVISING: After writing a draft you need to edit the ideas expression and revise the ideas; when doing this we
should evaluate :
• Organization: Sometimes we have standard formats (it includes an introduction, a body, and a conclusion); it's useful to
use any of a wide variety of organizing principles, such as chronological, spatial, and compare/contrast.
NB: pay special attention to the transitions.
• Style: Style is not only about formality or informality, it's also about voice, unifying different authors writing, etc.
Keep the sentences shorter and the words more comprehensible: break up long sentences, revise big words and long
phrases, evaluate long prepositional phrases, delete repetitious words, eliminate archaic expressions or references,
eliminate slang and clichès, emphasize precise word, ecaluate parallel construction and obscured verbs and avoid fillers.
• Readability: Readability means looking at your document trough your reader eyes (prospect); be sure to make your
writing clear and concise, not complex and challenging.
• Content: If you have a purpose statement you compare it to what is written in the the entire document; when writing
make sure you have included the content that corresponds to the given assignment.
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REVISION TIPS
• Take a break, you are proud of what you wrote but you might be too close to it to make changes; so set aside your
writing for a few hours or even a day until you can look at it objectively.
• Ask someone you trust for feedback and constructive criticism.
• Pretend you are one of your readers (are you satisfied or dissatisfied? Why?).
• Use the resources that your university or workplace provides.
TEST ORGANIZATION: Look at how your test is organized and ask yourself these 3 questions: do your paragraphs begin with
facts? Does the document react like a story? Is the document filled with “I”, “me” and “mine”?
If the answer to one of these wuestions is “YES” then your document needs to be revised: if your paragraphs begins with facts you
are not explaining but documenting; a story is not a good way to explain something and the document shouldn't sound like this;
finally nobody cares about who's writing, but what is written.
So to improve your organization:
• Pull points from the paragraphs (opinions and general truths) and compose the as short sentences.
• Write a purpose statement after analyzing audience and purpose.
• Compare the points against your purpose statement to eliminate irrelevancies and redundancies.
• Add points you thin are missing.
• Order the points the way the audience wants to see the information.
A fundamental point is to pay attention to the Unity and the Coherence: reading your writing aloud will often help you find
problems with unity and coherence; listen for clarity and flow of your ideas, and identify places where you find yourself confused
and write a not to yourself about possible fixes: repeat key words, ensure that each paragraphs begins with a point, use transition
words, use vertical list, ensure your graphics make a point and apply visual devices.
Other revision points: Format, Facts, Names, Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar.
PROPOSAL: It's a persuasive letter, not just a presentation of information but a call to have your ideas put in to action.
When writing a proposal be sure to state your intentions clearli (define your idea so that there is no room for misunderstanding);
be specific when making a case for your idea, and when explaining how you will follow trough with your plan; offer solutions to
any potential problems before they are brought up; provide step-by-step directions as to how to proceed once the proposal is
accepted.
(18 mag) CLARITY IN WRITING: When we talked about ambiguity, we told that it is not a welcome thing in writing and
speaking, and that there are logical policies that ambiguity is part of.
We also said that ambiguity is admissible when using hedging in scientific language (in order to protect specific works that may
result not accurate) and when optimizing legal language (because they cannot foresee any contingency, so they defend ambiguity
in order to not omit one); however ambiguous language still remains a wrong remedy for certain situations.
In any kind of research and publication there can't e imprecise data: rather than use ambiguous language in the body, acknowledge
the limitations in your introduction, then do your best to overcome the limitation when you write clearly in the body of your
document.
In order to do edit for clarity:
• Use concrete and specific words: Use words that don't invite multiple interpretations.
• Use active voice: Sometime the passive voice is necessary (when the author of the action is unknown, unimportant or
embarrassed), but the passive voice makes your writing and your speech very heavy, so you should avoid it.
• Simplify tense: Stay in present tense when possible, it brings more conviction to your statement.
• Avoid the helping verbs: Avoid Would, Should, and Could, and use more specific and use more concrete language.
• Identify and replace ambiguous pronouns: The pronouns refer to nouns, be sure your audience know the noun you refer
to.
• Use standard English words: Don't make up new words, “use the words from the vocabulary only”.
• Check sentences for misplaced or dangling modifier (errori lessicali): Especially when checking phrases.
READABILITY: We already talked about readability: we said that it's an important measure of the document success, it is the
ease with which you can read and understand a text.
In order to calculate the Readability Index the easiest way is to take a long text (more or less 100 words, not including vertical
lists), divided it for the number of sentences of which it is made and (you obtain the average of sentences length), and add the
number of long words (which are made of 3 or more syllables); at this point multiply it by constant 0,4 to obtain the Gunning
Fog index (or grade level).
IMPROVING READABILITY: There are some recomandations to improve the readability: do not assume that if your subject is
complex then you have to use complex language, your reader may need your language to be simple (especially if your subject is
complex); if you have an audience who knows little about the information, you might need to write a longer document but you
also need to use shorter sentences and shorter words (making your document easy to read is not “dumbing down”); on the
contrary making complex subject easy to read is the hallmark of successful communication (if your document has a readability
score 8, the language is suitable for a reader in the eight grade).
SHOW DON'T TELL: To be specific enough, so that your readers can draw their own conclusion if you express your opinion,
avoid vague sentences and try to emphasize persuasive points.
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CV: The first thing to impress your presumable future employer is writing a good CV (Curriculum Vitae) or, how English speaker
call it, Resume.
When you crate a CV keep in mind that your guiding star is to focuse on the purpose of it (“why am I writing this CV”), so it
should demonstrate how yo meet the requirements of the internship or work placement.
In your CV you should include: Transferable skills, Personal details, Contact details, Personal profile, Education history and
qualifications you are working forward or have completed, Employment history and job roles (also company name, brief note of
what you do/did, what you achieved, etc.), Professional qualification or training, current projects and roles, Skills, Interests,
References and Membership of professional organisations.
BODY OF THE CV:

• Begin with a resume summary: the personal profile, is a narrative statement on the top of the CV, that has to catch the
attention of your employer.
• Use Keywords: your resume has to be taylored (su misura) to the job profile, so you must include specific keywords in
specific places inside your resume.
• Mention a high GPA: the Grade Point Average (media dei voti) is the number representing the average value of the
accumulated frades earned in courses over time; NB:emphasize it only if it's high.
• Emphasize your soft skills: (especially communicative skills).
• Emphasize education
• Highlight any related experience
• Edit: take care of the body of the CV, grammatically and lessically.
• Finally: remember that employers are bombarded by resumes, so yours needs to stand out.
EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS: The employability skills are the non-technical skills needed to get a jo (often referred to as “soft
skills”); they include:
• Sense-making: Ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed.
• Trans-disciplinarity: Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines.
• New media literacy: Ability to critically asses and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these
media for persuasive communication.
• Design mindset: Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes.
• Novel and adaptive thinking: Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is
rote (meccanico) or rule-based
• Social intelligence: Ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to tense and stimulate reactions and desired
interactions.
• Computational skills:Ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based
reasoning.
• Cognitive load management: Ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to
maximize cognitive functioning using variety of tools and techniques.
• Cross-cultural competency: Ability to operate in different cultural settings.
• Virtual Collaboration: Ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demostrate presence as a member of a virtual
team.
(20 mag) VOCABULARIES:

• Background:Your past in general (e.g. My parents were also teacher).
• Experiences: What you've done in your life (e.g. i've been a teacher for years).
• Knowledge: What you know (e.g. I am an expert in astrophysics).
• Qualifications:Certificate which show you have learned something (e.g. I have a degree in chemistry).
• Qualities: (Generally positive) Characteristics (e.g. I am easy-going and reliable).
• Skills: Abilities developed by practice (e.g. I can fix electrical problems).
• Talents: Strong natural abilities (e.g. I can sing most tune well).
FINAL TIPS ABOUT RESUME:
• Do your homework: check the job and its basic requirements.
• Stay with your contact information's.
• Summarize your qualifications.
• State you objective and be specific.
• Organize.
• Keep it simple: take care of the readability.
• Be thorough and accurate with the 3 basic components (education, application, an extras).
• Omit Hobbies unless you interests somehow relate to the job you want:
• Omit personal characteristics (race, politic, religion, etc.).
• Don't discuss salary requirements (this is not what your CV is for).
• Don't get wacky with color, size or setup.
• Toss all humility aside (“it is your time to shine”).
PERSONAL PROFILE: A personal profile is a brief description of you and your experience.
It should focus closely on the experience and skills required for the job you are applying for, should be no longer than 3
sentences and be seen as ad advertisment for yourself.
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PHRASES:
• Draw a conlusion: To decide what to believe about something after you have considered the facts.
• Commit oneself to the task: To dedicate or devote oneself to something.
• Grasps an opportunity: to take advantage of something when it happens.
• Extracurricular activities: Things that you do at school or college that are not part of your course.
• Take action:TO do something to achieve an aim or deal with a problem.
• Experience something first-hand: To experience in a direct way by doing something yourself.
WORK JOURNAL: A Work Journal can be just like a personal journal and can be handwritten or typed (whichever is easier for
you).
It's an excellent resource for keeping track to reference (especially when you have a lot of work to do) and it also enables you to
build an impeccable resume.
With a work journal you can bullet specific projects that provide details and a colorful description of you and your work, rather
than just citing a bland lost of statistics and duties.
It also helps you to keep track of any award, certification, specialized classes, and everything counts.
COVER LETTER: In studying yourself, you simply compile all your best professional attributes, all your work experience,
and your educational background, and get it down a paper.
Try to include every major point that stands out in your mind, but weed out (elimina) any unnecessary details; then you can
elaborate in the actual interview.
It is also important to make it thy business to know the company to which you are applying, and the position you are seeking.
A Cover Letter is a sort of presentation and summary of your resume and a presentation of your purpose when searching for a
job.
In your CL you should:
• Explain scenarios and call out essential skills that aren't already covered in your resume.
• Keep it concise, even leveraging bullet points to point out key message;
• Customize each cover letter to the job you are applying;
• Make sure your CL contains appropriate scenarios that demonstrate your ability to perform the responsibilities listed
in the job description.
• Make it an opportunity to set yourself a part from a competition.
HOW TO WRITE A CL: Your CL highlights how specific information on your resume matches a job opening, so:
• Get the reader's information right.
• Tailor your cover letter to fit the company and the job (include your background).
• Be clear about the position you hope to get.
• Tell why you are the right choice for the job.
• Be specific about how you will make a difference.
• Close the deal.
MOTIVATIONAL LETTER: A Motivational Letter is not a CL: it consist of one page letter that's used to descibe why you are
the perfect candidate for a certain position, and it's usually attached to you DV.
There are 4 possible scenarios: you're applying to get to an educational program at a college or university; your applying to
work at a non-profit organization; you're applying as a volunteer in an organization; or you're applying for an internship in a
company.
NB: a cover letter highlights how specific information on your resume matches a job opening; all organization, on the contrary,
are looking for people who genuinely want to be there and are excited about what they would do (driving motivation).
MOTIVATIONAL LETTER CONSTRUCTION: ML is made of 3 parts:
• INTRODUCTION: In your introduction you're likely to include a short engaging pitch about yourself and why
you're applying; of course don't forget to mention contact information on top.
• BODY: This is the main bulk of your ML, where you reallt sell yourself mentioning stories behind your
achievements, skills, and passion for whatever you're applying for (obviously try to be as factual as possible).
• CONCLUSIONE: Briefly summarize your main points, mention your overarching goal, thank the reader and
conclude your ML.
TIPS:
• Avoid generalizations and add depth by tailoring it to the specific organization and program/position you are
applying to;
• ;ake sure you know what and where you're applying to;
• Find out who is in charge of deciding your fate and address them directly;
• Look at the program requirements;
• Demonstrate that you share the organization's values;
• State specific reasons, demonstrate knowledge and express passion for applying to the institution or organization
without showing off or begging;
• DO NOT LIE.
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COMMUNICATE IN SOCIAL MEDIA (LINKEDIN): Linkedin is very popular in Italy.
When crating a profile you have to consider the fact that you are competing with hundreds of candidates so the first thing to
do when doing this is establishing key words: find a few job ads corresponding to your dream job, brainstorming commonly
used words in your field; the look at profiles of other candidates with similar backgrounds or positions to yours and identify
the key words.
Add Key Word to: headline (most important), Current Job Title, Summary, Additional Job Titles and Interests (use them early,
at the beginning of your profile.
You also should take care of your picture: make sure there are no shadows across the face, non-distracting background, that
your eyes are bright and in clear view, that your expression is genuine (and with a welcoming smile), that you wear
professional outfit and , obviously, the picture should be taken by a professional.
Finally to complete your profile add your industry and location ; an up-to-date current position (with a description), at least 2
past positions, your educations, your skills (minimum of 3), a profile photo, and at least 50 connections (the people you are
connected with within your field or client base).
KEY WORDS THAT APPEAR FOR:

• HR MANAGER: Benefit and Compensations; Collective agreement; Conflict resolution; Contract negotiation;
Employee Assistance and Wellness; Employer Value Position; Executive Development; Executive
Sponsorship/influencing; Grievance and Arbitration; HR Policy Development and Execution; Human Resource
Administrator; Human Resource Systems/Technology; Industrial Relations; Payroll Administration; Performance
Management; Job Analysis/Development; Lawsuit Settlement Assistance; Merger and Acquisition; Occupational
Health and Safety; Organizational Development; Recruitment and Selection; Resources Planning/Budgeting; Risk
Management; Settlement Negotiations; Succession Planning; Talent Development/Retention; Training and
Development; Workers' Compensation Administration.
• SALES AND MARKETING: Account Management; Business Development; Channel Management; C-Level
Presentations; Consultative Selling; Competitive Analysis; Contract Negotiation; Cross-Selling/Up-Selling;
Customer Retention; Deal Negotiation and Closing; Lead Management; Market Research/Analysis; Marketing
Management; Post Sales Support; Product Development; Product Lifecycle Management; Prospect Qualifying,
Prospecting/Cold Calling; Relationship Management; RFP/RFI/Bid Preparation; Sales/Marketing Strategizing;
Sales Cycle Management; Sales Forecasting/Budgeting; Sales Management; Strategic Alliance Development;
Territory Management.
SUMMARY: When writing your summary be sure to answer the following questions:
• How did you get to where you are professionally?
• What are your top 3 accomplishments?
• What is the most important thing your audience should know about you and/or your company?
• What makes you different than other who do the same type of work?
• What action do you want people to take after reading your summary?
If you are a recent graduates be forward looking:
• Do you want them to e-mail you for a job opportunity? Say so.
• Do you want them to go to your website and subscribe to your newsletter? Say so.
• Do you want them to sen you an InMail Message with advice on your next career move? Say it.
JOB DUTIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS: You also have to list your jobs and accomplishments: your Linkedin Experience
Section should be completed as if you were talking to someone at a networking event.
Rather than state your job duties, state what you accomplished or how you helped the organization you work(ed) for.
CONSISTENCY: Remember: lack of consistency makes your information harder to absorb because the reader starts to expect a
particular format or grammatical construction; a mixed up format also appears unprofessionale (people might think you didn't take
the time or know enough to put care into details.
Spelling and grammatical errors also will turn many of your readers off and absolutely do not project the professional image you
want on Linkedin.
• If you have a list of items that start with verbs, make them all start with verbs.
• If you are writing in the third person don't switch to first person (and vice versa).
• If you use periods at the end of your bullets, do it everywhere.
• If you have a heading under one job descriptions that says “Major Accomplishments”, use the heading in all position where
you jad major accomplishments.
• Whenever you add a new position to your profile, make sure you use the same structure and format as you used for past
positions (and then remember to update it).
• Once you've benn in a position for 2-3 years, you need to add accomplishments so it doesn't look like your great
achievements happened in the past jobs,
SKILLS AND ENDORSEMENTS AND SPECIAL SECTIONS: This section is your best opportunity to appear in recruiters'
searches,
Many people don't take this section seriously because anyone can endorse you for a skill even if they don't have first-hand experience
of your skill level.
Nevertheless, recruiters do use this feature, so if you do not complete the skills section, you will lose a lot of leverage in your job
search.
Linkedin frequently adds new sections appropriate for special groups like artists and students, for activity like volunteerism and for
20

skills like languages: you might fall into one of these categories and be at disadvantage to the scientists who completed a patent
sections.
Furthermore you might be at loss when attempting to include all the aspects of who you are into your profile unless you utilize some
og these special sections.
These sections allow you to present information in an organized fashion so you don't have to get everything on your summaru or
experience sections.
RECOMENDATIONS: Profiles with Recommendations rank more highly in searches than those with the exact same keywords but
without recommendations: if you are short of recommendations from your connections, people might wonder whether they can truly
trust you.
There is some evidence that search results are ranked partly by how many recommendations you have.
So you have the opportunity on Linkedim to request recommendations from people you know (collegues, clients, supervisors, or
even staff.
STAY TUNED: Don't forget to update your profile:

• More visibility: Representatives at your target companies can see who their followers are: by being on their followers list,
you're telling companies that you are interested in them and you're also getting your skills and7or services in front of them.
• Steying up-to-date: View all recent update about your target companies, including company news, job openings, new hires,
and recent employee departure.
• Making an impression: like and comment on posts about your target companies.
• Making connections: Connect to the job your are looking for employees, in order to help you land a job or make a sale.
• Showing your support: Providing recommendations for a company's product and services makes the company look good on
Linkedim and shows them that you care about their success.
(25 mag) PRESENTATION SLIDES: Many organizations use presentations , especially power points, but not only organizations:
especially during the pandemic power points became a very important tool of presentation in many fields.
Being able to deliver a good presentation is a very important soft skill.
CAPTIVE AUDIENCE AND PRESENTER: A Captive Audience is a way to refer to that kind of audience which is forced to listen
to your presentation (e.g. a large audience): it can't stop or pause the communication flow, return or re-read an earlier part of the
message, look up an unknown technical term in the dictionary or scan through and skip ahead to the end.
Therefore, you need to orientate, guide and take care of your audience's needs.
The presenter needs to ensure that people in the audience are both willing (by asking question) and able (by offering framework,
pausing, signposting and recapping) to receive the message, and the best scenario is when you can use this channel of communication
interactively (questions, voting and discussion).
THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENTATION: Every production, presentations too in business communication is about the purpose:
• Inform: Increase the audience's knowledge, teach about a topic or issue, and share your expertise.
• Demonstrate: Show the audience how to use, operate, or do something.
• Persuade: Influence the audience by presenting arguments intended to change attitudes, beliefs, or values.
• Entertain:Amuse the audience by engaging them in a relatively light-hearted speech that may have a serious point for goal.
• Ceremonial: Perform a ritual function, such as give a toast at a wedding reception or a eulogy at a funeral.
NB: You must have your primal purpose in mind when choosing a topic, even if you have multiple purposes.
SELECTING A TOPIC: When selecting a topic consider the 2 following strategies.

• Consider the information you already have close at hand : Do you already have a project you are working on, perhaps in
another course? What are you currently studying in your other classes? What topics do you want to know more about?
Which issues or aspects initially drew you this topic or area? Chances are that whatever piqued your interest the first
time will also get your audience interested.
• Conduct a search (online, in the library, interviews, ecc.) in your subjects area to get an overview of the subject :
Explore topics, issues, places, or people that fascinates you.
There are also 3 factors you should consider when choosing a topic:
• Appeal: The attractive power of arousing a sympathetic, stimulated, response, from the audience: we all tend to seek
novelty and find interesting attractive, or appealing, or something that is not port of everyday life.
• Appropriateness: A topic that is especially suitable or compatible with your audience's interests, expectations, norms, or
customs: consider how you can convey your message without alienating or antagonizing your listener.
• Ability: The natural aptitude or acquired proficiency (skill) to be able to perform: consider your ability to gather
information from diverse sources, from places that are more readily available, or from your background and
experience.
PREPARING A PRESENTATION: When you start preparing a presentation you need to answer these questions: What do the
audience think and feel prior (prima) to your presentation? What do you want them to think and feel as a result of experiencing
your presentation?
THESIS STATEMENT: You could start with a Thesis Statement (we already talked about it, is a pre-summary of the
presentation) that should: be a declarative statement, be a complete sentence, use specific language (not vague generalities), be a
single idea and reflect consideration of the audience.
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The Thesis statement is key to the success of your speech: if your audience has to find out what exactly you are talking about, or
what your stated purpose or goal is, they will be less likely to listen, be impacted or recall your speech.
By stating your point clearly in your introduction and then referring back to it during your speech, you promote the cognitive
strategies of emphasis, clarity and conciseness, and hel you audience to listen while meeting the expectation of the rhetorical
context.
Micro Statement → A sentence that encapsulates the purpose of your presentation: it should be the foundation on which the
content is built, all evidence presented should support it, or be excluded, and everything said to the audience should persuade
them to accept and act on Micro Statement.
To test out your Micro Statement ask yourself: if the only thing that the audience remembered was this Micro Statement, would
that be a good enough result?
COMPILING YOUR INFORMATION: When you have a large amount of dat is not easy to compose, so you need firstly to
compile your information (compose your speech out of materials from the documents and other sources you have collected) by
following 7 steps:
• Sensitivity: Your capacity to respond to stimulation → if you are intrigued by your topic, your enthusiasm will carrys
through your speech and make it more stimulating.
• Exposure: Your condition to presented all kind of information → to make a presentation about something you have to
expose yourself to it.
• Assimilation and Accommodation: Process of integration of your ideas → search information and make it combine to
your topic.
• Incubation: During this stage, what you have learned, experienced, and researched, kinda amalgamate in your mind.
• Incorporation: It refers to a process where you bring your information into a whole and complete topic.
• Production: Creating your speech from the elements that you have gathered.
• Revision: Your speech is already done, now you just have to revise it.
TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS: There are 3 types of presentation:

• Documenting: If your slide contains more than 75 words, it is a Document (or Handout), so a Document is a large
written file or paper.
• Teleprompter: The teleprompter is a shorter document, it consist in a text that guide the presenter speech, and can be
read only by this one.
• Slide: Differently from the document which is not led by a discourse, a slide is a text that reunforce the presenter
speech with a visual reference.
PRESENTING: The presentation process can be seen like a 3 leg stool: the 3 legs, the Message, the Visual Story, and the
Delivery, sustain and support the presentation.
• Message: The message includes 4 important parts: Audience (create an audience personas, not something
indescribable), Ideation (facilitate brainstorm, develop the theme and create a structure), Writing (develop an outline,
write the scripts and the stories), and Critique (the feedback, adjust the message, align the audience).
• Visual Story: It includes 4 components: Visual Thinking and Graphic Design (both refer to everything you imagine that
can be necessary to be put in the slides), Motion Design (the presentation imply also a bit of motion), Critique again.
• Delivery: the message can be delivered in 3 ways: Human, Web or devices, and Paper.
It also include Critique.
SEVEN QUESTION TO KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE:
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• What are they like? → Demographics and Psychographics are a great start, but connecting with you audience means
understanding them on a personal level (take a walk in their shoes and describe what their life looks like).
• Why are they here? → What do you think they are going to get out of this presentation?why did they come to hear you?
Are they willing participants or mandatory attendees?
• What keeps them up at night? → Everyone has a fear, a pain point, a thorn in the side... let your audience know your
empathyze.
• How can you solve their problems? → How are you going to make their live better?
• What do you want them to do? → Answer the question “so what”, make sure there's a clear action for your audience to
take.
• How might them resist? → What will keep them from adopting your message and carrying out your call to action?
• How can you best reach them? → People vary in how they prefer to receive information (this can include everuthing from
the setup of the room to the availability o materials after the presentations); give the audience what and how they want it.
STRATEGIES FOR CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION:

• Use images that are culturally neutral (visual approach).
• Keep graphic extremely simple (not all cultures, for example, process info fro left to right).
• Connect with your audience (slide should provide a structure for the presenter).
DATA (CLARITY ABOVE ALL): Any Data that your presentation carries has to be in a clear manner (data slides are not about the
data, they are about the meaning of the data).
Some tips:
• Tell the truth: Successful presenter treat the data they do show with absolute integrity (Credibility → Ethos), so be prepared
to provide access to the complete data set, if requested, and be ready to answer questions about your conclusions.
• Get to the point: You need to draw some kind of meaning from the data so that you can effectively express that meaning to
your audience.
• Pick the right tool for the job: You can use various program which present various graphs etc... be aware to choose the right
tool to present your ideas properly.
• Highlight What's important: Remember that a slide's purpose is to show your conclusions not all the data that support it: be
sure to higlight the right things.
• Keep it simple: Be sure not to confuse your audience, keep your slide simple to read (succint text, crisp thoughts, big ideas,
clear mnemonic, relieved audience).
VISUAL ELEMENTS: Visual elements are also important in a presentation (Background, Colors, Text, Images, etc.).
LETTING GO (REDUCE, RECORD AND REPEAT): To conclude the presentation process there are 3 more steps:
• Reduce the amount of words in a slide, highlighting the keyword.
• Record yourself while you're delivering the presentation.
• Repeat several times your presentation to update it and improve it.
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CONCLUSIVE CONSIDERATIONS: Remember to treat your audience like a king: they don't come to your presentation to see
you, but to find out what you can do for them.
So spread ideas and move people: creating ideas is what we were born to do; getting people to feel like they have a stake in what
we believe is the hard part so communicate your ideas with strong visual grammar to engage all their senses and they will adopt
the ideas as their own.
Obviously help them see what you're saying: think like a designer and guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not
hinders, their comprehension.
Don't just make pretty talking points, instead display information in a way that makes complex information clear.
Last but not least, cultivate healthy relationships: display information in the best way possible for comprehension (rather than
focusing on what you need as a visual crutch).
NON-VERBAL PRESENTATION: Non-Verbal Communication is a process of message conveying that doesn't imply word: it
involves the entire body, the space it occupies and dominates, the time it interacts, and not only what is not said, but HOW it is
not said.
Nonverbal communication is always in motion, as long as we are (and is never the same twice), is irreversible and fast (it's
immediate).
In presenting a speech we communicate non-verbally much more than we engage in verbal communication.
We can distinguish 4 categories: Illustrators (used to reinforce our point and make it more effective), Emblems (non-verbal
gesture signals), Regulators (non-verbal behavioral messages which control, maintain and discourage interaction) and Affect
Display (non-verbal communication that express emotions or feelings).
Non-verbal communication can be
• Universal or Cultural (some non-verbal communication are cultural oriented, for example bowing to salute someone is
a Japanese tradition);
• Confusing and Contextual (we cannot take the nonverbal communication out of its context, or it would be meaningless)
• Intentional or unintentional;
Humans believe non-verbal communication more than verbal: it does mean that non-verbal communication is a more sincere
way of communicate.
For this reason nonverbal communication is the key in the speaker-audience communication.
(27 mag) BODY LANGUAGE: Body Language is the most important type of non-verbal communication; it includes: Ways of
talking, Posture, Appearance, Head Movements, Hand Movements, Eye Movements, Facial Expressions, Body Contact,
Closeness (e.g. invading someone space), and Sounds (e.g. laughing).
TYPES OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: There are multiple types of non-verbal communication which involve
• Space (Proxemics): It refers to the distance of the people involved in the communication process.
Space is related to Territory, which is related to Control, which is related to Personal Space: Edward Hall noticed that
the relational distance between the persons is related to the physic distance (Proxemics).
• Time (Chronemics): Our relation with time affects our communicative process (for example trying to arrive at the right
hour to a dinner with someone, is a form of respect).
• Physical Characteristics: Researches show that good-looking people: are more persuasive, better at sales, have better
careers, have greater edurance and tend to have relationships with other good-looking people.
• Body Movements (Kinesics): The way your body moves can complement the verbal message in multiple ways:
regulate it, reinforce it, substitute or replace it.
• Touch (Haptics): Haptic relationships also are part of the human communication process: it can ben be Functional-
Professional (e.g. a medical examination), Social-Polite (e.g. handshake), Friendship-warmth (e.g. hug), Love-intimacy
(e.g. kisses), Sexual-Arousal (e.g. sexual caressing and intercourse), etc.
• Paralanguage: Paralanguage involves verbal and non-verbal aspects of speech that influence meaning, including Tone,
Intensity, Pausing, and even silence: they can communicate hesitation, indicate the need to gather through, or serve as a
sign of respect.
• Artifacts: Artifacts are forms of decorative ornamentation that are chose to represent self-concept: so it includes rings
and tatoos, brand, names and logos, etc; the way we dress and show up our self communicates a message.
• Environment: The physical and psychological aspects of the communicative context (the context surely changes the
meaning of what we say.
POSTURE: Posture is the way we “hold our spine”: the way our posture show itself to the others tell a lot about our personality
and the approach we have with other persons.
GESTURES: gesture are very symbolic and not universal: they can reinforce our speech or substitute it.
MOVEMENT: The movement of a speaker can be described by a simple triangle [guarda sulla slide].
THE VOICE: A good speaker must pay attention to all the aspects of its voice: Volume (soundcheck), the Pitch (varied tone),
the Devlivery (avoid incluging too much material), the Pauses (building the eye contact, dramatic effects...), etc.
ORGANIZING YOUR SPEECH: We already talked about rhetorical situations, now we will discuss of the basis to organize
your speech.
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In order to produce a good speech is important to actually know the topic that we're going to talk about: you obviously may
know everything about the topic but at the time of the speech you find yourself unable to organize your exposition.
RHETORICAL SITUATION: You should treat every speech that you give a rhetorical situation, made of a context, a purpose
and an audience.
All speech follow the following steps: the Attention Statement, the Introduction, the Body, the Conclusion, and the Residual
Message.
ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES: Your speech could follow the following organizing principles: Time (chronological),
Comparison, Contrast, Cause and effect, Problem and Solution, Classification (categorical), Biographical, Space (spatial),
Ascending and Descending, Psychological, Elimination, Ceremonial (events, ceremonies, or celebration), Awards, Toast
(wedding or similar gatherings), Speaker Introduction, After-dinner Speech, and/or Oral Interpretation.
DELIVER YOUR PRESENTATION: as you have determined the format of your presentation is time to deliver it in a sequence:
• Creating an opener: Pose a question that has relevance for your audience, create a powerful scenario using visual
imagery, quote statistic that is likely to surprise or entertain, or refer to a relevant and memorable quotation.
NB: Use Humor with caution: it has to be appropriate, in good taste, and support your topic.
• Signaling transitions and changing pace through linkers : Take time to emphasize transitions between each of the main
points that you cover, give a brief recap of the last topic, pause for a few seconds before introducing the next topic,
reinforce the signalling of transitions using non-verbal cues, if there is more than one presenter split up the topics the
best you can, and consider that also regulare transitions and frequent changes in the pace of delivery can help to keep
the audience alert and interested.
• Closing with a flourish: Closing a statements are: the equivalent to the concluding section of a written report where
the presenter draws the arguments together and attempts to ensure that the audience has absorbed them; opportunity to
remind everyone of the initial purpose of the presentation; an opportunity to summarize the key points, showing how
they combine to achieve that purpose.
• Handling questions, interruptions and dialogues : A useful way to not lose your audience attention is establishing a
sort of dialogue between you, that are presenting your own topic, and your audience.
For example you could build a QnA system in order to have an inclusive speech with your audience; but be aware of
the following problems: they may be unable to give an answer, know the answer but consider that it is of little interest
to other member of the audience, or know the answer but be unwilling to give it.
(1 giu) PERSUASION: Persuasion is something we don't notice and yet is omnipresent.

Persuasion is an act or process of presenting arguments to move, motivate, or change audience, and can be Implicit or Explicit.
NB: Persuasion is not Motivation: Motivation involves the force, stimulus or influence to bring about change.; so Persuasion is
the process and Motivation is the compelling stimulus that encourages your audience to change their beliefs or behavior, to
adopt your position, or consider your arguments.
DARK SIDE OF PERSUASION: Persuasion can be also used to Affect, Convert, Convince, Exhort, Induce, Influence, Prompt,
Sway, Urge, or Win someone Over.
We are talking about a Spin Doctor, a dishonest person who provides a favourable slant to an item of news, a potentially
unpopular policy, or similar, especially on the behalf of a political personality or party; it's sometimes accused of exerting
undue influence on, or even brain-washing, their audience.
The receiver must have some freedom in responding to persuasive messages, and an underlying ability to choose between
alternative courses of action: without freedom there is no scope for negotiation and therefore no need to persuade.
MEASURING PERSUASION: Persuasion doesn't happen if the audience doesn't change: this change can be measured by a
system of assessing the extent to which audience members respond to a persuasive message.
The audience response can be: Hostile, Negative, Neutral, Positive, or Supporting.
CONTEXT: Like we know context is the situation in which a conversation occurs: we can distinguish, when talking about
cultures, between Low Context (specific detailed and precise communication, unspoken messages and body language), and
High Context (less direct communication, emphasis on human relations, more sensitivity to non-verbals and feeling of others).
If your audience is primarly high-context, you may be able to rely on many cultural norms as you proceed, but in a low-context
culture, like USA, you'll be expected to provide structure and clearly outline your position and expectations.
PERSUASION IN ORGANISATIONS: In organisation there are some areas (departments) that are more “persuasion-rich”.
Persuasion is especially relevant for:
• Advertising: Persuasive techniques are used to secure the attention of a target audience and to increase its subsequent
recall of the message.
• Public relations: Mainly concerned with managing the links between an organisation and the people outside, including
customers, local communities and journalists.
• Lobbying: Presenting an organisation's case to the key decision makers, originally in the lobbies (corridors of
parliament.
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• Interviews: Job interviews can involve persuasion in both sides.
• Business meetings and negotiations: Persuading people to accept proposals or controversial ideas.
PRINCIPLE OF PERSUASION:
• Reciprocity: When persuading you try to make your audience feel like it owns yous something.
• Scarcity: Convincing your audience to listen to your idea while it still can (e.g. saying that a product is limited edition).
• Authority: People whit more experience on something are more capable to obtain its audience credibility.
• Commitment and consistency: Symbols are very important: when trying to persuade someone you often refer to
symbols (like shacking hand in business).
• Consensus: Trying to imitate the mass in order to be more persuasive with other members of the group.
• Liking: As we already said attractive people are more likely to succeed.
STEPS FOR EFFECTIVE PERSUASION: There are some steps that must be followed in order to make persuasive
communication effective and understand your audience, support your opinion, know the various sides of the issue, respectfully
address other points of view, find common ground with your audience, and establish credibility.
1) Ask yourself “who is your audience” : What beliefs do they hold about the topic? What disagreement might arise
between you and your audience? How can you refute Counterarguments with respect?
2) Ask yourself “what concerns does your audience face” : For example do they have limited funds to distribute? Do they
feel the the topic directly affects them? How much time do they have to consider your arguments? Etc.
3) Help your audience relate to your topic : Appeal to their hearts as well as their minds, Use anecdotes when appropriate,
paint your topic in with plenty of detail, and involve the reader's senses in these sections.
4) Become familiar with all sides of an issue : You can try to find common ground, understand history of the topic, predict
counterarguments your audience might take, or find strong support to your own perspective.
5) Find common ground with your audience: Find a way to support point of opposition referring to common ground (e.g. I
want to continue this war, in order to make the troops come back home like the audience do).
6) Predict counterarguments.
7) Appeal to the audience reasons and cite experts on the topic: Use statistics and reputable studies
8) Which source would a reader find more credible? And which person would the reader be more likely to believe? : be
sure to specify these.
So: cite credible sources, cite sources correctly and thoroughly, use professional language and design, and edit out all the errors.
NB: Don't lecture or talk down to your audience, don't make threats or bully your reader, don't employ guilt tips, and be careful
when using the second person “you”.
ASSESSING THE NATURE OF THE AUDIENCE: What previous experience do they have, either of you as an individual, or
the organisation that you represent? What do they already know, and how do they feel, about the subject matter of your message?
What do you know about their personality and their current state of mind? Are you trying to persuade one individual or a large
number of people? Are they able to act independently, or are they playing the role of representatives or agents of another
organisation? What other factors might be persuading them in the opposite direction?
ASSESSING THE MESSAGE CONTENT: Does it comprise facts, ideas, opinions or a mixture of all three? Is it relatively
simple or complex? Is the content likely to be surprising, unwelcome threatening to your audience, or to those they represent? Is
your purpose to change facts and ideas/change beliefs and values/change actions and behaviour?
FUNCTION OF PRESENTATION TO PERSUADE: Persuasive presentation have multiple functions:

• Stimulate: Reinforce existing beliefs, intesify them, and bring them to the forefront.
• Convince: Change the attitudes, beliefs, values, or judgements of your audience.
• Call to action: If the audience comes to a mental agreement that a problem exists, they will look to you asking for an
optin; then you may indicate the solution, that is a better alternative, recommending future action:
> Adoption: It means the speaker wants to persuade the audience to take on a new way of thinking, or adopt a new idea
> Discontinuance: It involves the speaker persuading the audience to stop doing something what they have been doing.
Rather than take on a new habit or action, the speaker is asking the audience member to stop an existing behavior or
idea. As such, discontinuance is in some ways the opposite of adoption.
> Deterrance: It's a call action that focuses on persuading audience not to start something if they haven’t already
started.
> Continuance: When the speaker aims to persuade the audience to continue doing what they have been doing.
• Increase consideration: Basing your persuasive speech on something the audience members are more open to.
• Develop Tolerance of alternate perspectives: Showing yourself opened to other's ideas makes you appear like someone
who already considered other otions, and reinforce your idea.
CHANGING BELIEFS AND VALUES, AND ACTION AND BEHAVIORS: Successful persuasion in the face of deep set beliefs
may take some time in order to work.
Fully scale persuasion only arises where receiver has an in-built resistance towards the proposed action or chang in behavior.
In some case direct contacto with people who have experienced he consequences has proved more persuasive.
ASSESSING THE CONTEXT: Ineffective persuasion outcomes may result from the sender's failure tu fully grasp the context in
which the persuasive message is being received.
SO you have to consider: the Context (internal or external to an organisation), what are the potential barriers and how can these be
overcome, and "When what you have to say clearly intersects with what the other person wants or needs or cares about, you have
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given [them] a primary, compelling reason for listening You're not actually demanding that he/she give up self-involvement. You're
just piggybacking on some part of the listener's own momentum ... you're defining your message as another facet of his or her
ongoing life concerns.
PERSUASIVE PRACTICES:
• Addressing people by name: The use of personal names exploits the capacity for selective perception, and increases phasic
alertness and can make people feel involved.
• Posing questions: Posing question can be helpful to make your speech more persuasive; your question can be: Open (shows
you are genuinly interested in the receiver's response, as they allow people the freedom to respond in any way they wish),
Closed (are used to seek confirmation and can be used to narrow down a receiver's response; these questions can normally
only be answered with specific pieces of information, such as "no" or "yes"), Limited Choice (assist in controlling the
conversation and saving time, they suggest to the receiver that one of the options you have given is correct), Leading or
Value-Laden (tend to enforce your own points of view onto the receiver with the aim of persuading them of your point of
view), Probing (used to gather additional information or to clarify the situation), and Multiple (should generaly be avoided,
because thay can be ambiguous).
• Being provocative: Persuasive communication often make use of provocation.
• Using different channels and encoding: Sounsds, music, smell and taste can have a particularly strong persuasive impact,
by-passing cognitive processe (the receiver intellect), and making a direct impact at the level of the emotions and instincts.
MASLOW'S PYRAMID: Maslow was a psychologist who divided people's needs into category, creating a sort of pyramid (from the
base to the top):
• Psychological needs: Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction.
• Safety needs: Personal security, employment, Resources, Health, Property.
• Love and Belonging: Friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection.
• Esteem: Respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strenghtm freedom.
• Self-actualization: Desire to become the most that one can be.
Therefore if you appeal to these levels of the pyramid you're able to structure your persuasive messages much more coerently.
SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY: Our communcation can be described in a concetric circle: from the external to the internal
circle we have a progrsion from superficial to intimate levels of communication.
While we know better a person we go deeper inside the circle, and relating to the maslw's pyramids, we can be more able to
understand this persn's needs.
ETHIC PERSUASON: There are principles of ethics in persuasion:

• "Win or Lose" approach to persuasion is counter-productive, because persuasion is not about imposing your ideas on
someone but convice this person about them.
• Long-term reputation is much more important than short-term games.
• Unethical persuasive practices are illegal or contraru to industry standards; we're talking about: Unacceptable Purposes
(e.g. cigarettes to children), Unacceptable Content (e.g. Nudity), and Unacceptable Channels and Encoding (e.g. Subliminal
tachiques).
ELEVETOR PITCH: Apresentation that persuades the listener in less than thirty seconds, or around a hundred words.
It takes its name from the idea that in a short elevator ride (of peraphs ten floors), carefully chosen words can make the difference.
The phases of the Elevator Pitch are: State the Problem, Aggravate it, Tease Solution, and Add Value.
The Elevator Pitch doesn't need to be formal, is not a full-sale speech (so you don't need to specify everything)
TEDTALK:
CREATIVITY: Creativity is a fenomenum with which we come up with something new: almost every aspect of discplines in
scientific fields touch on creativity.
Nowadays we live in a world where almost everything has been discovered or thought.
QUOTABLES: Sometime the words that we use are memorable statements:

• Sound Bites: Brief statement that zero in on the point of a larger or longer message, so they: are clear and concise, use
vivid and dynamic language, are easy to repeat, and are memorable.
• Slogans: Phrases that express the goals, aim, or nature of a product, service person or company.
• Quotes: memorable saying extracted from written or verbal messages.
WHAT IS TED TALK: Some people are exceptionally good at presentig their ideas, and there's nothing better than an idea
spreaded by competent people.
TED is a sort of show where ideas are spreaded and presented, everyday there are at least 5 TED talk events all around the world.
The Key part of the TED format is that we have humans connecting to humans in a direct and almost vulnerable way: the talks
that work best are the ones where people can really sense that humanity (emotions, dreams, imagination, etc.).
UNLEASH THE MASTER WITHIN: So, what makes your heart sing? Your passion is not a passing interest or even a hobby: a
passion is something that is intensely meaningful and core your identity.
Once you identify what your passion is, can you say it influence your daily activities? Can you incorporate it into what you do
professionally? Your tru passion should be the subject of your communications and will serve to truly inspire your audience.
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As you find these passion you have to identify your unique and meaningful connection to your presentation topic: science show
that passion is contagious, you cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself; so you should express an enthusiastic,
passionate, a meaningful connection to yor topic.
So, accept happines as a choice: identify a challenge you faced recently, and list 3 reasons why this challenge is an opportunity;
at this point you see that happiness is a choice an attitude that is contagious.
PASSION: Denis Diderot once said that "only passion, grat passions, can elevate the soul to great things."
Passion mbilizes a person's energy and enchances his commitment to a goal; but it does so much more: according to Melissa
Cardon "Entreprenaurial passion catalyzes dull-blown emotional expereinces, complete with engagement of brain and body
responses."
She also says that passion is something that is core to a person's self-identity (it defines a person).
NEUROPLASTICITY: Thanks to the study of Neuroplasticity scientists are finding that the brain actually grows and changes
throughout your life: as a person becomes an expert in a particular area (music, sport, public speaking) the areas of the brain
associated with those skill actually grow.
PASSION IS CONTAGIOUS: When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break
their bonds: your mind trascends limitations, you conscoiusness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great
and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever
dreamed yourself to be.
SO it's also important to invite passionate people into our lives: identifying your passion is the first step, but you also must share
it, express it and talk about what motivates you.
STORY TELLING: Brenè Brown said "Stories are just data with a soul."
TED talks speakers tells us the power of a story (power in Pathos), appealing to you audience emotion is a powerful technique.
Stories plant ideas and emotions into a listener's brain, introducing Heroes and Villains:
• A spokenperson reveals a challenge (villain) facing a business or industry;
• The protagonist (brand hero) rises to meet the challenge;
• Finally, the towns people (customers) are freed from the villain, the struggle is over and everyone live happily.
We can identify 3 simple effective types of stories inside of TED format:
• Personal stories: The speaker talks about itself.
• Stories about other people: The speaker talks about people near to him or whm story is known by him.
• Stories about brand success.
(3 giu) HAVING A CONVERSATION: When we spoke about presentation we said that one of thetricks of presenting was
treating your presentation as an extended conversation.
According to Steve Jobs, in order to become more or less the master at "everything" you have to practice at least 10.000 hours,
which includes, when talking about presentations, preparing your speech, speaking in public, looking for the topic, etc.
True persuasion occurs only after you have built an emotional rapport with your listeners, and have gained their trust: if your
voice, gestures, and body language are incongruent with yoir words, your listeners will distrust your message (it's the equivalent
of having a Ferrari without knowing how to drive).
Authenticity doesn't happen naturally: an Authentic presentation requires hours to work.
HOW TO SPEAK SO PEOPLE LISTEN: In order to make the people keep attention to what you're saying you have to pay
attention to 4 paramaters: Rate (speed at which yous speak), Volume (loudness or softness), Pithc (high or low inflections), and
Pauses (short pauses to punch key words).
BODY LANGUAGE: If you don't believe what you are saying, your movementts will be ankward and not natural: no amount of
training will allow you to break that incongruence between your words and actions.
So, if you don't belive in the message you cannot force your body to act as though you believe in the message.
GREAT LEADER AND AIR OF CONFIDENCE: In a grou presentation, the persion with the best "command presence" is
usually the leader: he or she understands the material best, shows it, and has the confidence to take charge.
They are tipically dressed a little better than everyone else, they have stronger eye contact and have a firm handshake.
They also speak concisely and precisely, don't get flustered, remain calm, use open gestures, and walk, talk and look like
inspiring leaders.
GESTURES: Gesture, like we already said, are very important and sometimes even necessary (studies shows that complex
thinkers also use complex gestures).
Gestures give the audience the confidence in the people, but watch out: use the gesture sparingly (don't overuse) at the key
moments.
Also be sure your gesture don't overpass the "Power Sphere": the Power Sphere is an imaginary sphere that stand in front of us, in
which the gestures are "supposed to be allowed".
Psychologic experiments showed that people who converse without nonverbal communication are less effective than those who
do, so be sure it's well built.
Also the way you sit on a chair is important: be sure your posture is straight, not bent-forward or bent backward.
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ANNOYING HABITS: When talking about Fidgeting, Tapping, and Jiggling, we're talking about people who doesn't pay much
attention to what you're saying.
• Fidgeting: it happens when you do a lot of unnecessary movements.
• Tapping: it happens when you beat a pen on the table.
• Jingling: it happens when for example keep playing with your keys or something with your hand.
These are problematic body language because define the lack of confidence.
NB: it doesn't mean that your body has to be rigid, it means that your movements should show professionality: even if you don't
feel confident, act like it and your chances of success greatly improve ("fake it till you make it").
NOVELTY (novità): Novelty recognition is a hard-wired survival tool all humans share: our brains are trained to look for
something brilliant and new, something that stands out, something that looks delicious.
"There are two ways to beat the cruelty of the environment: becoming stronger or becoming smarter." (John Medina); according to
this quote, human is a natural explorer who has an unquenchable need to know and to learn: learning something new activates the
same reward areas of the brain as do drugs and gambling (dopamine is released).
So, fo a TED talkers is important to present new topics and teach something new to its audience: the human brain loves novelty
(an unfamiliar, unusual or unexpected element in a presentation intrigues the audience, jolts them out of their preconceived
notions, and quickly gives them a new way of looking at the world.
To be an effective presenter explore outside your field and bombard the brain with new experiences.
SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATION: Successful presentation reveals ideas you'd never considered: in order to force the brain to see
things differently, you must find new and novel ways to help the brain perceive information differently ("the brain must be
provided with something that it has never before processed to force it out of predictable perception).
If you can't explain your big idea in 140 characters or less, keep working on your message: the discipline brings clarity to your
presentation and helps your audience recall the one big idea you're trying to teach them.
This is the logic of twitter (which has a maximum of 140 character for twit); the Twitter outline works for 2 reasons:
• It's a great discipline, forcing you to identify and clarify the one key message you want your audience to remember.
• It makes it easier for your audience to process the content.
JAW-DROPPING MOMENT:The jaw-dropping moment, in a presentation, is when a presenter delivers a shocking, impressive, or
surprising moment that is so moving and memorable, it grabs the listener attention and is remembered long after the presentation
is over.
It works because creates what neuroscientist call “an emotionally charged event” a heightened state of emotion that make it more
likely your audience will remember your message and act on it.
Delivering such moments is difficult but very useful because, referring to what we said before, it helps the body release dopamine.
PROPS: Persuasion occurs when you reach the person's heart and head (logic and emotion), so you need evidence, data and
statistics to back up your argument.
So. make number s of meaningful, memorable, and jaw-dropping by placing them in a context that the audience can relate to.
PACKAGE YOUR DATA: It's important not to leave your data dangling: if your presentation has a number or data point that is
groundbreaking or paramount, think about how you might package it and make it appealing to the listener.
HUMOR: Humor is one way to package your data, but it's important to learn how to to incorporate it properly: a joke poorly told
or a well-delivered but tactless joke can diminish your reputation with your audience very quickly.
Humor is one of the tools the brain is hardwired to react to and is key to making a message new and novel.
Humorous people are seen as friendly, extroverted, considerate, pleasant, interesting, imaginative, intelligent, perceptive, and
emotionally stable.
The message is: don't be too serious about your presentation, humor lower defences, making your audience more receptive to your
message.
Humor can come in various forms: Anecdotes, Observations, and personal stories but also analogies, metaphores, quote, videos,
and photos work.; remember to re use humoristic strategy that you already used (if appropriate).
THE 18 MINUTES RULE: How do we get a memorable presentation? Researchers have found out that 18 minutes is the ideal
length of time for a presentation: they have discovered that “cognitive backlog” (too large amount of information)prevent the
successful transmission of ideas.
The brain is an energy hog, it gets tired easily (we have a finite amount of willpower each day: our life is frittered away by detail,
so it's very important to just simplify.
THE RULE OF 3: People can remember three pieces of information really well. so if you add more than 3 important information
in your speech retention falls off considerably.
Some examples: France → libertè, ègalitè, fraternitè; many flags have only 3 colors; there are 3 medals in the Olympics; etc.
So: create a “twitter-friendly outline”, support the headline with 3 key messages, and reinforce them with stories, statistics, and
examples.
MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCE: It's possible deliver presentation that engage more than one sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, and
smell): brain does not pay attention to boring things, but it's nearly impossible to be bored if you're exposed to mesmerizing
images, captivating videos, etc.
The brain does multitasking at some level, but when it come to the brain ability to pay attention to a lecture, conversation, or
presentation, it is simply incapable of paying equal attention to multiple items.
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PICTURE: Picture are superior to word: if you hear something we have about 10% of remembering the same information 3 days
later, but if you add a picture to your speech it rise to 65%.
Some others important rules are: no more than 40 words in the first 10 slides and kill bullet points on most of them.
To boost your memory, transf orm verbal information to visual information as much as possible;
obviously help yourself with examples (the brain is not designed to grasp abstractions.
REPETITIONS: Repetition is a very strong rhetorical device, because it keeps our attention up: it's not about hearing something,
it's about feel it.
BE AUTHENTIC: A last important rules about TED is “be authentic”: most people can spot a phony, and if you try to be
something or someone you are not, you'll fail to gain the trust of the audience.
(8 giu) PRESENTING TO INFORM: Presentation to inform are different from Persuasive speech: its goal is to communication
the information so that your listener understands (not to change its behaviour), so it needs to communicate respect and focus on
the needs of the listener.
So the Informative Presentation must Instruct, Explain, Describe, Enlighten, Clarify, or Inform the audience about a given topic; in
a word Inform.
An Informative Speech has 4 key functions:
• Share content and information: Share content and information with your audience (reduce ignorance, increase learning,
and facilitate understanding of your chosen topic).
• Increase your audience's understanding: What does your audience already know? How are you going to illustrate your
points?
• Help your audience change perceptions of the topic: Every event has different interpretations, so changing your narrative
may change your life (perception).
• Gain skills: Information are theoretical, skills are practical: giving specific tools to your audience could help them gain
speech.
EXPOSITION: Exposition is a public exhibition or display, often expressing a complex topic in a way that makes the relationships
and content clear.
It means to communicate the topic and content to your audience in way that illustrate, explain, and reinforce the overall content to
make your topic more accessible to the audience; it also means to communicate thoughts, ideasm and relationships and allow each
listener specifically, and the audience generally, to draw their own conclusions.
INTERPRETATION AND BIAS: The idea of exposition is opposed to the idea of Interpretation: when we interpret (interpretation
of something in our mind) we adapt the information to communicate a message, perceptive, or agenda.
Interpretation always involves Bias: as we know Bias is an unreasoned or not-well-thought-out judgement.
Bias is like a filter on your perceptions, thoughts, and ideas, it encourages you to accept positive evidence that supports your
existing belief's (regardless of whether they are true) and reject negative evidence that does not support your beliefs.
In order to avoid Bias in your presentation keep neutrality:
• Keep your language neutral, and not very positive for some issues while very negative for others.
• Keep your sources credible and not from biased organizations.
• Keep your presentation balanced: if you use a source that supports one clear side of an issue include an alternative
source and view (give each equal time and consideration).
• Keep your audience in mind: not everyone will agree with every point or source of evidence, but diversity in your
speech will have more to offer to everyone.
• Keep who you represent in mind (your business and yourself).
INFORMATIVE SPEECH TYPES:

• Explanation: Involves a specific topic.
• Description: It describes information.
• Report: Reporting on: a meeting, a trend, the status of a specific topic, a change, a time constraint, etc. ; it has to be short
and hilight only the important information.
• Demonstration: It is used to clearly show a process, telling the audience important details so that it can replicate that.
THINGS TO AVOID:
• Mansplaining: To comment on or explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and ofte
inaccurate or oversimplified manner.
• Talking too fast:
STRATEGIES TO MOTIVATE THE LISTENER (ATTENTION-GETTERS): Startle (shock) the audience , make rhetorical
quesitons, use quotes, tell stories, and use imagery, sounds, and visual.
Especially when you are a teacher/trainer your audience may ask themselves: how's your topic relevant to me? What will I
learn from you? Why are you interested in the topic?, How can I use the knowledge or skill that are presented to me?, What is
new about what you are presenting? Are you going to bore me? Is your topic really as important as you say it is?.
Be sure to answer all these questions.
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FRAMING THE CONTENT: Framing the content means presenting the information in a way that it shapes the attitude and
behaviour: so you have the same picture, but the frame you choose to describe it, will be appreciated in different ways.
Framing is like placing an imaginary set of boundaries, like frame around a picture, around a story, of what is included and
omitted, influencing the story itself.
So, Highlight where you and your audience are on the same side, find existing areas of agreement, and be hard on the problem
but soft on people itself; also identify some nouns that speak to an identity shared by you and your audience.
There are 2 basic kind of framing:
• Gatekeeping: A process of determining what news, information, or entertainment will reach a mass audience.
• Culture: Whitin the context of communication, it is a set of beliefs and understandings a society has avout the world,
its place in it, and the various activities used to celebrate and reinforce those beliefs.
HELP YOUR AUDIENCE LEARN: When you are presenting an informative speech there are few steps that you can take in
order to help your audience: limit the number of details, focus on clear main points, pace yourself, Speack with concern for
clarity, restate and repeat, provide visual aid, leave time for questions, find ways to actively involve your audence and assess
learning.
There are some learning styles
• Linguistic: Reading oral presentation such as debates, reports, or storytelling.
• Logical/Mathematical: Problem solving, graphic organizers, categorizing, classifying, working with patterns and
relationships.
• Spatial: Maps, charts graphic organizers painting or drawing, visual aids, working with picture or colors.
• Musical: Rhythmic patterns and exercises, singing, music performance.
• Bodily/Kinesthetic: Drama, role playing, touching and manipulating objects, demonstrating.
• Interpersonal: Group projects, interaction, debates, discussions, cooperative learning, sharing ideas.
• Intrapersonal: Individual projects, self-paced instruction, note-talkin, reflection.
PREPARE YOUR SPEECH: When preparing your speech:

• Start with what you know: that will make you more enthusiastic.
• Consider your audience's prior knowledge: you are building on what they already know.
• Adapt jargon and technical terms: provide definition when necessary but don't treat your audience like a bunck of
morons that don't know anything.
• Use outside information (sources).
• Reciprocity (Communication is transnational) and common ground : never treat your audience like a bunch of robots
so encourage them to participate and also find common grounds.
• Non-judgementalism: Don't be judgemental.
• Honesty and trust + avoid exploitation: Don't take advantage of someone and be honest a trusty.
An informative speech is usually organised so: an Attention statement (raise interest and motivate the listener)man
Introduction (communicate a point and common ground), a Body (address key points), a Conclusion (summarize key points),
and a Residual Message (communicate central theme, moral of story, or main point).
INTERVIEWS: Interview is a discussion with a purpose, so it's rich in messages (all what is said has its own importance).
There are various types of interviews:
• Recruitment interviews: An individual aiming to convince an organisation to hire it or an organisation aiming to
convince an individual to be hired.
• Promotion Interviews: You have internal candidates who are competing for a promotin.
• Appraisal Interviews: It provide an opportunity for the employee to review its performance and progress.
• Coaching and Mentoring Interviews: The ones where staff get trained for the job they have to do.
• Disciplinary Interviews: It's normally the response to some problematic behavior.
• Grievance Interviews: They deal with problems that the employee has raised.
• Research Interviews: Used to collect data.
• Public relations, Marketing, Or Campaining Interviews.
RESEARCH INTERVIEW: Let's see more in detail Research Interviews; there are 3 types:
• Structured: Interviewers follow a carefully worded script.
• Semi-structured: Interviewers typically make use of a cecklist of topics to be covered, but are more flexible in
the way that the questions are worded and the order in which they are raised.
• Unstructured: Typically make use of a checklist of topics to be covered, but are more flexible in the way that
the questions are worded and the order in which they are raised.
EFFECTIVE LISTENING STRATEGIES:

• Observing the other's person's behaviours.
• Encourage them to speak.
• Ensuring that you do not become distracted from what the person is saying.
• Capturing what has been said for future references.
• Summarising the person's words in your own mind.
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• Taking notes.
• Using encouraging gestures, such as smiling, nodding, making eye contact, and positioning yourself so that
you are facing the person and able to give feedback.
ACTIVE LISTENING CHARACTERISTICS

• Avoiding prejudice: An active listener must be open-minded.
• Signaling interest in the person speaking: Opens gestures, open posture, wods like “i see”, “I understand”, etc.
• Being aware of feelings: Good listener can simultaneously operate in cognitive and effective levels (feelings
level).
• Avoiding interruptions and distractions.
• Signalling encouragement.
• Clarifying and Summarising: Repeating what the interviewed is saying to show interest.
SEATING AND ROOM LAYOUT: The way you dispose when interviewing someone is very important: the distance
between interviewer and interviewed, the way they position around a table (Collaborative when in one side of the table,
Adversarial when in different sides of the table, and Intimidating when in different side of the table but in one side there
are multiple individuals)..
QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES: There are various types of questions, so it's very important to pay attention to the
sequence of them: you should start with open and closed questions, than you move on with probing questions and
clarification, than you ask hypothetical question, and finally leading questions and interruptions.
(10 giu) TAKING CONTROL (INTERVIEWEE): Ever get all excited for an interview, only to be frustrated that it
didn’t go as well as planned? Maybe your experience wasn’t portrayed in its best light, or your many accomplishments
weren’t valued. How can you avoid this outcome, and take control of the interview?
Stop being defensive – most job candidates take a defensive interview stance and answer questions that the interviewer
asks. The stronger candidates go on the offensive…they interview the company.
So taking control of the interview help the candidates to feel more comfortable, show itself like strong, and help it to
answer the questions properly.
INTERVIEW PREPARATION TIPS:

• Study the job description and the employer's mission statement.
• If you are nervous about thejob interview, prepare answers to tough questions about gaps in your resume or
background.
• Practice your interview question responses ahead of time.
• Make your final job interview preparations.
VIRTUAL INTERVIEW TRICKS:

• Set the Scene: An empty wall behind you is the best, no lights behind you, put the camera at your eye level.
• Plan your outfit: Don't play too casual, and too elegant either (wear a simple office shirt), also you better not
use headphones at first times (so use computer mic and audio).
• Test your tech: in order to not have problem during the interview (speaker, internet, audio, etc.).
• Practice: Practice, for example with your friend, to talk virtual mode: especially you have to learn to look at the
camera.
• Interview: During the interview make sure there are no distraction, but if any distraction occurs don't turn off
your camera or your mic.
SOME COMMON QUESTION'S RESPONSES: Respond to general questions with your best elevator pitch:
• “Tell us about your background”: Tell a concise story with a beginning, middle and end that explains your current career
status, why you are qualified and clearly define why you are the best candidate for the job.
• “Why do you want to work for us?” : Focus on what makes you passionate about the job and company, then demonstrate
how you fit in the company culture.
• “Tell us about something from your resume”: Pick out the accomplishment that most clearly relates to the job.
• “Why should we hire you?”: Use your concise elevator pitch, which should touch on the skills and experience you have
that qualify you for the role.
You have to zone in on the hiring manager's purpose and goal behind each question so that you give them exactly what they are
looking for.
You need to be careful though: simply cobbling together your questions and answers from random internet site might be not proper.
About the common questions that focus on your achievements highlight your achievements and credit those who helped you:
• “Tell us about a challenge you faced at work and how you dealt with it” : Highlight your problem-solving teamwork and
leadership skills.
• “Why are you the best person for the job?”: Focus on past successes that are most relevant to the job.
• “What is your greatest achievement?” : Tell a short story about an achievement, how you overcame challenges to
accomplish it, the impact it made, and what you learned.
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About the questions to access your flaws, make your responses honest, positive and constructive:
• “What did you like least about your last job and why?” : Focus on some of the day-to-day drudgery that didn't inspire
passion but had to be done (you can also mention anything about the position you are interviewing for that would be an
improvement on your last job.
• “What your biggest weakness?”: Identify something job-related that yiou struggled with but which you have worked to
improve.
• “Tell us about a time you made a mistake” : Aknowledge your part in the mistake and avoid blaming others; obviously
explain how you learned from the experience.
About the common creative-thinking and problem-solving questions:
• “What animal describes you?” : Use the answer to highlight a feature about yourself that is pertinent to the job. If you say
you are a lion because you are brave, for example, talk about the bravery it took to apply for a role at a company where you
have no connections
• “How many tennis balls fit into a Boeing 747?” : Walk your interviewer through the steps you are taking to solve the
problem. Ask for clarity if you need to, and share your assumptions, the calculations you are making and any necessary
caveats
LAST TIPS:
• Be yourself: When we cater: we are intentionally choosing to minimize our own interests and preferences in favor of those
of the person we are trying to impress, e make an effort to hide who we really are a cognitively and emotionally draining
process, we can’t be certain about the other person’s preferences and expectations, no matter how much research we’ve
done on them; this raises our anxiety and hurts our performance
• Stay calm: "Embrace empowering rituals".
• Prepare.
INTRAPERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION:
INTRAPERSONAL COMMUNICATION: Intrapersonal communication is basically what you communicate to yourself: it may
include self-talk, acts of immagination and visualization, and even recall and memory; it can also involve solving complex problems.
There are several types of Intrapersonal Communications that involve:
• Self-Concept: It's a rather complex notion which basically refers to what we perceive ourself to be: Self-image (how you
see yourself and who you want to be), and Self-Worth (how you value yourself).
• Perception: Depending on your beliefs, values and attitude, you can parceive the same thing different than another person
with differing beliefs, values and attitudes.
• Expectation: Your long-term expectations are sometimes projections of what you have learned from enviroments such as
your own family growing up and the society you belong to.
INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: A dialogue with ourself can be rational and reasonable, or disorganized and illogical; it can interfere
with listening to others, impede your ability to focus, and become a barrier to effective communication.
Luft and Ingram define 4 domensions of seld: Known to others and me, Known to others and not me, Unknown to others and known
to me, and Unknown to all.
This 4 dimension are important because they are related to Leadership styles; Daniel Goleman defined 6 of them:
• Commanding: Also known as Directive or Coercitive, the power of telling people what to do and when to do it.
• Affiliative: Growing personal bonds and striving toward team well-being (focus on harmony rather than results).
• Democratic; Also known as Participative, it's about working together through dialogue and seeking concensus,
• Coaching: Choaching team members to develop themselves to become better individuals and professionals.
• Visionary: Built on inspiring and motivating people to pursue a long-term vision.
• Pacesetting: Focused on performance and results, the Leader act as a role model for others to follow (excellent output is
required)
There are 3 major examples of intrapersonal communcation: Thinking, Vocal (speaking alone), and Written (e.g a secret diary).
ADVANTAGES OF INTRAPERSONAL COMMUNICATION: Intrapersonal Communication is useful to learn understanding
yourself, which leads to more empathy and understanding of others.
It also helps you develop better analytical skills and improve decision-making skills.
INTERPRESONAL COMMUNICATION: Interpresonal Communication is the communication between 2 or more people:

according to W.Schuts model, it involves Affection (underpersonal and overspersonal), Control (autocratic and democratic,
andabdicratic), and Inclusion (undersocials and oversocials).
There are 2 theories which explain why we communicate with others:
• Uncertainty theory: We don't like what we don't know, so if something is unknown, including people, we feel
uncomfortable, so we need to communicate to know each other.
• Predicted outcome value theory: We want to maximize our benefit from associating.
SELF-DISCLOSURE: When trying to know someone new we follow specific steps:

• Small steps: It involves little things like simple questions (e.g. "nice weather today, right?").
• From impersonal to intimate information: It involves mor personal exchange of information.
• Reciprocal: Build reciprocity.
• Involve Risk: Exchange of reciprocal and risky information.
• Involve Trust.
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CONVERSATION AS A RITUAL: Conversations is not just begining to communicate with others, it follows steps that remind a
sort of ritual: it start with an Initiation (e.g. Saluting and introducing random topics), than a Previes, the Talking Point(s), a
Feedback, and the Closing.
(15 giu) GROUP COMMUNICATION AND MEETINGS:
GROUP COMMUNICATION: A Group is a 3 or more individuals who affiliate, interact, or cooperate in a familial, social or
work context; so Group Communication can be defined as the exchange of intormation with those who are alike culturally,
linguisticallu, and or geographically (group members may be known by their symbols, their use of secialized language or jargon,
their proximity, etc.).
Groups are defined by Function (why the groups form in the first place, meet many of your basic human needs) amd omsode
relations (conversations and a shared sense).
Relationships are part of any group and they can be described in terms of: Status, Power, Control, Role, Function, and Viewpoint.
GROUPS IN THE WORKPLACE: Inside workplace we can divide groups into 2 categories:
• Primary groups: Usually primary groups are those where most of the needs of the human being are met.
• Secondary groups: They meet some, but not all, of the needs (they are often functional, like student groups).
TUCKMAN'S LINEAR MODEL OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT: This model explains how groups come to be and how they
"die":
• Forming: When teams comes together, they are not a team, they are just a group of people who don't know one another
clearly: so they find little agreements, unclear purpose and choose a guidan anr/or a direction.
• Storming: As we feel mor econfident our desire to fit in is exceeded by our desire to be true to ourselves: people of the
group start arguing, which means they still trying to know each others and they are not comfortable with the work they
need to do.
• Norming: As every member of the group find its place and task inside the group they start working properly (they are
finding norms of behavior).
• Performing: if people find good ways to work with one another and build good relationships the work permorms
properly and also psychological relationships improve.
• Adjourning: When the work end the group split: this can result both destructive or aknowledging (you learn from your
path inside the group).
LIFECICLE OF MEMBER ROLES (MORELAND AND LEVINE): The commitment (impegno) in the various phases of the
work group has various levels: during the phase of formation of the group, till its stabilisation, the commitment rise; when the
group finally stabilized, the commitment start to diminish because of the dvergences till the end of the work.
Talking about the single member, its phases are: Entry, Acceptance (its commitment reach its maximum), Divergece, and Exit.
MEMBERS' ROLES:
• Full Members: Know the rules and customs, can create new rules, control the agenda, have considerable influence on
the activities, come into conflict, and may be unwilling to adapt and change.
• New Members: Look to full members for leadeship and guidance, usually don't speak out in conflict situation, but may
suggest new ways that emphasize efficiency over existing methods.
• Divergent Members: Pull back, contribute less, start to see themselves as separate from the group, have less eye
contact, seek out each other's opinion less frequently, and listen defensively.
• Marginal Members: Start to look otside the group for their interpersonal needs.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE MEMBER ROLES:

POSITIVE NEGATIVE
Initiator-Coordinator: Suggest new ideas or new ways of Dominator: Dominates discussion, not allowing others to take
looking at the problem. their turn.
Elaborator: Builds on ideas and provides examples. Recognition Seeker: Relates discussion to their
accomplishments; seeks attention.
Coordinator: Bring ideas, information, and suggestion together. Special-Interest Pleader: Relates discussion to special interest or
personal agenda.
Evaluator-Critic: Evaluates ideas and provides constructive Blocker: Blocks attempts at consensus consistently.
criticism.
Recorder: Record ideas, examples, suggestions, and critiques. Joker or Clown: Seeks attention through Humor and distract
group members.
PROBLEM SOLVING IN A GROUP: When the groups comes together it's usually defined by functions; John Dewey defines 7
steps of the problem-solving process: Defining the problem (if the problems isn't defined well the project may actually fail),
Analizing the problem, Establish criteria, Consider possible solutions, Decide on a solution, Implement the solution, and Follow up
the solution.
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MEETINGS: Meetings consist in groups of people that see each other in an established place to talk about something.
There are various meeting types:
• Briefing: To deliver information.
• Investigatory: To gather information.
• Advisory: To provide information.
• Consultative: To voice opinions.
• Executive: To make decisions.
Meetings can be ranged in way to provide optimum information flow (the way the information is exchanged between the members
of the meeting); if optimum information flow is provided various advantages may come up: instantaneous feedback and intensive
flows of verbal and nonverbal communication; rapid exchange of ideas and group synergies which can generate better solution than
individuals working alone or communication through less intensive channels; informing and motivating attendees.
POTENTIAL DIFFICULTIES:
• Messages criss cross around the meeting room and are highly vulnerable to noise and incorrect decoding.
• Each attendee arrives with his or her own information, pre-conceived ideas, feelings, and prejudices.
• Limited attention spans and selective perception of each individual can lead to different interpretation of the material that
has been discussed, the arguments presented and any decision that may have been made.
• Discussion and arguments can become highly personalised as individuals play politics or begin to identify themselves too
closely with particular positions.
• Loss of direction (drifting into unrelated topics, becoming high jacked.
• Misallocation of time leaving insufficent time for the main business issues.
• Most important issues rushed through by an over-tired chair.
FORMAL MEETING FEATURES: In many large organizations meetings has to follow a very strict protocol: Rules and Procedures
must be already established, the meeting must follow a clear purpose statement, it must include written record of previous meetings,
and the participant must be specified individuals which are invited to partecipate.
SOME MEETING TERMS:

• Agenda: Document which lists the topics to be discussed at the meeting providing a structure for it.
• Adjournment: A break in the meeting before all of the agenda items have been covered; this may be because it is
inquorate to obtain information, or simply to allow participants to have a break; adjournment is normally a temporary
postponement with an agreed date and time for resumption.
• Amendment: Motions can be subject to amendments, which are also proposed, seconded, and put to the vote.
• AOB: Meaning, any other business.
• Ex officio: Ex officio members are individuals appointed to a committee by virtu of the office they hold, rather than by
direct appointment or election.
• Matters arising: This is a standard agenda item, referring to items from the previous meeting's minutes that require further
discussion or clarification.
• Minutes: Document that is intended to provide an accurate and unbiased record of the meeting.
• Motion: Motion are part of the voting procedure used in some committee meetings.
• Point of Order: It's where the non-followed rules are pointed.
• Proxy: A proxy is someone acting in behalf of a person who is unable to attend the meeting.
• Quorum: This term refers to the minimum number of members or delegates required for a meeting to proceed.
• Through the chair: This rules enables the chair to exert some control over the meeting.
• Ultra Vires: Decision or action that fall beyond to remit of a particular committee.
MINUTE TYPES:
• Verbatim Minutes: It's a sort of protocol.
• Narrative Minutes: It's more or less detailed summary of the discussion: it's considered a legal document and a
summary of discussion that leads to decisions.
• Resolution Minutes: It states only what was agreed at the meeting, and it's used primarily for statutory meetings.
GUFFEY CHECKLIST: According to Mary Ellen Guffey, the participant of the meetings: should arrive on time and stay yntill
the meeting adjourns; leave the meeting only for established breaks or emergencies, be prepared and have everything you need
on hand; Turn of cell phones and personal digital assistants; follow the established protocol for turn-taking; respect time limits;
demonstrate professionalism in your verbal and non-verbal interaction; communicate interest and stay engaged in the discussion;
avoid tangents and side discussion; respect space and don't place its notebook or papers all around you; clean up itself; engage in
polite conversation after the conclusion.
SUCCESSFUL CHAIR: A successful chair has to follow specific rules during all the meeting:
• Before the meeting (tactical planning): Consider the purpose, postpone if not enough items/key peopl, avoid
overloading agenda, check venue for seating and equipment, and read papers and reports.
• During the meeting (diplomacy and time management): Time-keep strictly to ensure all business is covered, tactfully
and assertively control hijackers, ensure fair contribution from participants, remain calm and objective, ensure
secretary has recorded decisions, summarise issues and seek consensus, and ensure all action points are agreed.
• After the meeting (prompt follow up): Reviw minutes and ensure they are circulated to the circulation list; ceck the
previous action column before the next meeting and seek confirmation as to wheter the named individuals have done
what was required.
35

SEATING ARRANGEMENTS: The decision about who is to attend depnds on what you want to accomplish in the meeting, not
your own judgement about who should come.
If possible call each person to tell them about the meeting, it's overall purpose and why their attendance is important.
During the meeting it's also important the seating arrangement: it defines roles, status, and hierarchy.
DELIVERING BAD NEWS: The bad feelings associated with disappointing news can generally be reduced if the receiver
knows the reasons for the rejection, feels that the news was revealed sensitively, and believed that the matter was treated
seriously and fairly.
So the goals when delivering negative news are:
• Be clear and concise in order not to require additional clarification.
• Help the receiver understand and accept the news.
• Maintain trust and respect for the business or organization and for the receiver.
• Avoid legal liability or erroneous admission of guilt or culpability.
• Maintain the relationship, even if a formal association is being terminated.
• Reduce the anxiety associated with the negative news to increase comprehension.
• Achieve the designated business outcome.
STRATEGIES ON DELIVERING BAD NEWS: The strategies include: explain clearly and completely, project a professional
image, convey empathy and sensitivity, be fair, and maintain friendly relations.
The strategies can be or
• Direct: When the bad news is not damaging when the receiver may overlook the bad news, when the organization or
receiver prefers directness, and when the organization or receiver is necessary.
• Indirect When the bad news is personally upsetting, when the bad news will provoke a hostile reaction, when the bad
news threatens the customer relationship, and when the bad news is unexpected.
When you choose the indirect strategy you have to keep it ethical: the key to ethical communication lies in the motives
of the sender, unhetical communicators intend to deceive.
Although the indirect strategy is a technique for announcing bad news, it should not be used to avoid or misrepresent
the truth.
Sarcasm, profanity, shouting or abusive or derogatory language should be avoided, and privacy should be respected.
Deciding what strategy is the better depends on the audience, the context, and the purpose.
AVOID CONTRADICTIONS: Make sure your information is consistent and in agreement with the general information in the
conversation.
Don't provide more information that is necessary, remember that polarizing absolute terms like “always” and “never” are often
subject to debate, and obviously be precise and specific.
INDIRECT STRATEGY STEPS:

• Buffer; Open with a neutral but meaningful statement that does not mention the bad news.
• Reasons: Explain the causes of the bad news before disclosing it.
• Bad New: Reveal the bad news without emphasizing it, and provide an alternative or compromise, if possible.
• Closing: End with a personalized forward-looking pleasant statement avoiding referring to the bad news.
COMBINED APPROACH: Combined approach link direct and indirect strategies, in order to find a solution to the
problem explained.
DELIVERING BAD NEWS SENSITIVELY:

• Buffer: Introduce the discourse telling something positive (Best news, compliment, appreciation, agreement,
facts, understanding, apology).
• Reasons: Introduce the explanation (cautious explanation, reader or other benefits, company policy explanation,
positive words, evidence that matter was considered fairly and seriously, etc).
• Bad news: Now define the bad news (Embedded placement, passive voice, implied refusal, compromise,
aternative...).
• Closing: Close defining also positive solutions (forward look, information about alternative, good wishes,
freebies, resale, and sales promotion).
DELIVERING NEGATIVE NEWS IN PERSON: It's very difficult delivering bad news face to face, so be careful to be
prepared: have a clear goal, gather all the information, prepare and rehearse, eplain things about past, present and future,
consider taking a partner, think about timing, and be patient with the reaction.
IN PERSON E-MAIL OR PHONE?:Written feedback takes time to prepare, send, receive, process, and respond;
miscommunication and misinterpretation can also easily occur,
At least telephone calls allow for quick feedback and clarification questions, and allow both parties an opportunity to
recycle and revisit topics for elaboration or a better understanding.
Lacks part of the non-verbal spectrum available to speakers in a live setting.
36

REFUSING TYPICAL REQUEST AND CLAIMS: When writing a refusing message follow these steps:
• Buffer: Start with a neutral statement on which both reader and writer can agree, such as a compliment,
appreciation, a quick review of the facts, or an apology.
• Reasons: Present val reasons for the refusal, avoiding words that create a negative tone.
• Bad News: De-emphasize dhe bad news, use the passive voice, accentuate the positive, or imply a refusal;
suggest a compromise, alternative, or substitute, if possible.
• Closing: Renew good feelings with a positive statement, avoid referring to the ad news; include resale or sales
promotion material, if possible or appropriate and look forward to continue business.
DISAPPOINTED CUSTOMERS: A disappointed customers is like a bomb which can take a big piece of the customers
out of you.
The only way to deal with an angry customer is trying to find a compromise, that rebuilt its trust in you.
So, call or e-mail the individual immediately, describe the problem and apologize, explain why the problem occurred,
what they are doing o resolve it, and how they will prevent it from happening again, and finally promote good will by
following up with a print message that documents the phone call.
Also when responding a bad review you have to follow this logic: verify the situation, respond quickly and constructively,
consider freebies, learn how to improve, and “accept the inevitable.
DENYING CLAIMS: Many customers present claims to the companies when they are not fully satisfied: the company
must keep a polite behaviour even if the claim is based on a customer's fault.
Avoid “you statement” that may sound preachy, use neutral objective language to explain why the claim must be refused,
and consider offering resale information to rebuild the customer's confidence in your product or organization.
As a company you also may have to deal with feedback that includes negative comments: feedback may however become
a useful thing that shows the weaknesses of the company when delivering a service.
CUSTOMERS: Customers include also employees themselves, their relationship with the business, product, or service has
value to the organization.
This relation can be studied with 2 kind of researches:
• Qualitative Research: It's the interpretation of data, has a minor statistical validity, its results are not replicable.
• Quantitative Research: It's the investigation and analysis of numerical data, so some aspect of raw data are lost
but the data are reliable and valid.
PRESS CONFERENCES: A press conference is a presentation of information to the media.

The speaker should: deliver a prepared message, represent the business or the organization in a professional manner, have
a good reason for holding a press conference, and meet the needs of its audience as it deliver its message.
There are also some lines that a speaker shouldn't use: “i think”, “i believe”, “i don't know”, “no comment”, etc, that can
be replaced with phrases like “we are not ready to discuss the matter at this time”, “when more information becomes
available we will let you know”, “our company had no position at that issue”, “we're not prepared to speculate on that
issue at this time”.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: Friedman says: “The dawning 'Flat World' is a jungle pitting lions and gazelles where
economic stability is not going to be a feature and the weak will fall farther behind”.
Culture is all about beliefs, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people; it's a psychological aspect of our
expectations of the communication context because it's an inseparable fabric of our thought.
If communicate means exchanging meanings culture is surely relevant.
When talking of individuals with different culture that interact, we are talking about intercultural communication (NB intercultural is
not necessarily international, cultural diversity might be present in one nation).
ETHNOCENTRISM: Tendency to view other culture as inferior to one's own.
HALL'S PRINCIPLES: Albert Halls defined the iceberg model, and said that culture is like it: only some part of a cultural are
relevant and visible.
The best way to understand the non-superficial level is knowing the language at first; however Hall's formulated some principles for
intercultural communication:
• Compare cultures: focus on the interactions versus general observation of culture.
• Shift to local perspective (local level vs global perspective).
• You son't have to know everything to know something: time space, gestures, and gender roles can be studied, even if we
lack a larger understanding of the entire culture.
• There are rules we can learn: people creates rules for themselves in each community that we can learn from, compare, and
contrast.
• Experience counts: personal experience has value in addition to more comprehensive studies of interaction and culture.
• Perspective can differ: descriptive linguistics serve as a model to understand culture, and the U.S. Foreign Service adopted
it as a base for training.
• Intercultural communication can be applied to international business.
• Integrate discipline: culture and communication are intertwined and bring together many academic disciplines.
37

STEREOTYPES: Stereotypes are generalizations about a group of people that oversimplifies their culture; we tend to resort to
stereotypes when do not have enough contact with people or their cultures to understand them all.
It's related to Prejudice which involves a negative preconceived judgement or opinion that guides, conducts or social behaviour.
COMMON CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS: A newcomer starts out as a nonentity, a stranger, an unaffiliated person, with no
connection or even possibly awareness of the community.
Rites of Initiation mark the transition of the role or status of the individual within group: some of these rituals may be so informal to
be hardly noticed (e.g. the first time a coworker asks you to join the group to eat lunch together), while others may be highly
formalized.
Cultures share common history and traditions; common purpose and sense of mission; common symbols, boundaries, status,
language, and rituals; common values and principles.
SOME CULTURAL DISTINCTIONS:

• Individualistic vs Collectivist: Individualistic culture perceive their world primarily from their own viewpoint;
Collectivistic cultures focuses on the need of the nation, community, family, or group of workers.
• Explicit vs Implicit Rule: Explicit rules are clearly communicated so that everyone is aware of them, the guidelines and
agenda for a meeting are announced prior to the gathering; Implicit rules are often understood and communicated non-
verbally (there may be no agenda).
• Uncertainty Accepting vs Uncertainty Rejecting: When we know someone we get uncertain about it: this uncertainty can
lead to acceptance or rejection.
• Monochromatic vs Polychromatic Time: Monochromatic times means that interruptions are to be avoided, and everything
has its own specific time; Polychromatic times means “business and family mixing with dinner and dancing”.
• Short-Term vs Long-Term Orientation: an action can be long term or short term orientated, referring to the future
consequences.
• Masculine vs Feminine Orientation: To extent to which that culture values certain traits that may be considered masculine
or feminine.
• Direct vs Indirect: we already know the differences between a direct and an indirect approach.
• Materialism vs Relationships: In certain cultures work and money worth more than family and friends.
• Low-Power vs High-Power Distance: When talking about high-power distance we refer to culture where economic gap is
wider and affect relationships between classes; the opposite is low-power distance.
MANAGEMENT STYLE: People and their relationships to dominant and subordinate roles are a reflection of culture and cultural
viewpoint; we can distinguish 3 types of management:
• Theory X: Workers are motivated by their basic (low-level) needs and have a general disposition against labor; manager is
authoritarian or autocratic and does not seek imput or feedback from employees.
• Theory Y: Employees are ambitious, self-directed, and capable of self-motivation; manager provides little supervision.
• Theory Z: Worker participate and emphasizes job rotation, skills development, and loyalty to the company; A high need for
reinforcement and belonging is emphasized, and also managers support it.
ACCULTURATION: What happens when you move from one culture to another? A process of Acculturation.
This process pass by multiple steps: Initial Anxiety → Initial Elation → Initial Culture Shock → Superficial Adjustment →
Depression-Frustration → Acceptance of host culture → Return anxiety → Return Elation → Reentry Shock → Reintegration.
38


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8 ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION:

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Asking people questions usually prevent miscommunication.

The transmission model means that communication is a one-way model.

Shackle = mettere ai ferri, ammanettare, incatenare; it's similar to chained

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COMMUNICATION BARRIERS (Handshout 5)

(15 apr) TYPES OF MESSAGES: There are 3 main types of messages:

MESSAGE'S CONSTRUCTION: Messages are usually are broken down in 5 parts:

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IMPROVING VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Preventing message mistakes:

SELF: One's own sense of individuality, motivations and personal characteristic.

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(27 apr) 8 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION (REMINDING): We defined 8 different elements of

ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION ORAL APPLICATION WRITTEN APPLICATION

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SYSTEMS IN COMMUNICATION: There are 2 main systems of Communication:

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Some colloquial terms:

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(8 mag) PLANNING THE WRITING PROCESS:

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CHECKLIST FOR PLANNING BUSINESS MESSAGES

CHANNEL STRENGHTS WEAKNESSES EXPECTATIONS WHEN TO CHOOSE

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TYPES: Business letters have all kinds of purposes and types:

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SENTENCES: Sentences can be Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative and Exclamatory.

SOME NETIQUETTE: Here are som netiquette (when writing an email):

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ACCADEMIC DISSERTATION (tesi accademica) BUSINESS REPORT

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BODY OF THE CV:

(20 mag) VOCABULARIES:

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KEY WORDS THAT APPEAR FOR:

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STAY TUNED: Don't forget to update your profile:

SELECTING A TOPIC: When selecting a topic consider the 2 following strategies.

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TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS: There are 3 types of presentation:

SEVEN QUESTION TO KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE:

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STRATEGIES FOR CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION:

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(1 giu) PERSUASION: Persuasion is something we don't notice and yet is omnipresent.

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FUNCTION OF PRESENTATION TO PERSUADE: Persuasive presentation have multiple functions:

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ETHIC PERSUASON: There are principles of ethics in persuasion:

QUOTABLES: Sometime the words that we use are memorable statements:

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