Business Communication Assignment Descriptions 2011

Due date: 26-Nov-2011 Submission method options: Hardcopy Task 1: Writing Letter Value: 20% (2 marks) Length: 300 words (excluding references and appendices) Purpose: To gain practice with the details of proper business letter format, style, content, and language use. Assignment: Compose a letter to your immediate supervisor, with a copy to a colleague and your instructor. The letter should describe the content of an article you have recently read in a business or industry periodical. Send the letter to your instructor as an email attachment. Your letter will be evaluated on the basis of correct letter format (as described at your text book) clear, concise language use in a context/information/action structure correct grammar, spelling, syntax and vocabulary use How to accomplish: Follow the format carefully, structure the letter content carefully, and proofread carefully. This is how you accomplish any business writing task. As with playing the guitar, the principles are very simple, but the implementation can take years of practice. If you are not already good at following directions, expressing your ideas clearly, and proofreading carefully, you can expect this project to take a whole lot of practice. Please refer to Letter Writing Guide (http://letterwritingguide.com) for sample letters. Task 2: Prepare a Professional Resume Value: 20% (2 marks) Length: 300 words (excluding references and appendices) Purpose: To apply the conventions of professional resume content and format using the student's own personal information. The result should be appropriate for use in applying for an internship, a part-time student job, or a career position. Assignment: Prepare or update your resume to maximize its effectiveness in showcasing your professionalism with respect to the common expectations 2 of communication in a typical business organization. This assignment will be scored with respect to: reflecting a pragmatic task focus, sensitivity to the hierarchical relationship of the job situation, a reliance on objective evidence to prove any point, and a professional competence with the resume document format, structure and content (20% of score).

 providing information about yourself that is relevant to the stated career objective (20% of score), and framed in such a way as to convey your qualification for the targeted position (20% of score), and appropriately formatted for distribution to a career search audience of recruiters, network contacts, and potential interviewers (40% of score). How to accomplish this: Refer, in particular to the annotated, chronological example provided at UNI's business communication website(http://www.cba.uni.edu/buscomm/JobSearchCommunication/resum eElements.html). Additional advice and links are available at that site, at the Rod Library (http://www.library.uni.edu). Pay particular attention to the scoring elements listed above, and watch out for these common errors: Task focus: Job descriptions and accomplishment bullets should provide information about what you've done, not what you're learned or hoped to accomplish. Use active, concrete verbs rather than vague phrases such as "assisted with" or "responsible for" or "supported". Correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and conservative fonts and graphic elements. Task 3: Prepare a Cover Letter Value: 20% (2 marks) Length: 300 words (excluding references and appendices) Purpose: To apply the norms of business communication to the writing of a cover letter. Assignment: Prepare a cover letter in response to a specific job announcement, a personal referral or as a cold-contact with a company of interest. The cover letter will be scored on the basis of conformance with the content requirements of a cover letter content appropriate to the job announcement content appropriate to the applicant's resume (the previously submitted resume will be used unless an updated version is provided). adherence to business norms of style, including both polite but enthusiastic tone and correct language use. How to accomplish this: Refer to your textbook and online search for cover letter sample (http://www.bestcoverletters.com). Your textbook will give you detail idea about how to write a cover letter. Task 4: Writing Business Proposal Value: 40% (4 marks) Length: No word limit Purpose: Apply the principles of persuasive communication in proposing an idea or activity to a business audience. Assignment: 5M Corporation is an automobile workshop located in Tejgaon industrial area. It is a fully equipped digital workshop that is specialized in denting, painting, engine works, wheel balancing, CNG conversion, Genuine

lubricants, Genuine parts, latest equipment, trained professional, emergency mobile service and car wash. 5M serves only corporate customer. As A General Manager (sales) of this company, you need to write a business proposal to UNICEF. UNICEF has 62 vehicles that require regular service and engine works. Business proposal will indicate how 5M will be able to serve much better than other workshop. Business proposal will be scored on the basis of adherence to the norms of business decision-making as elements of personal credibility clarity of the message with respect to the problem statement, claim, and action being proposed. use of narrative, image and self-disclosure to create an eloquent and persuasive message How to accomplish this: Do little research on Unicef and 5M Corporation so that issues of audience analysis, speaker credibility, and expectations for evidence can be authentically treated. Creating a "hypothetical" situation is likely to result in a superficial treatment of the topic and a poorer score. There is never a single "right" answer when it comes to persuasion, but everything you do should be done for a reason. Please use online (http://www.ehow.com/how_12848_write-business-proposal.html) and refer to your textbook for business proposal sample.

Assessment Requirements
Students will be assessed in subjects on the basis of a combination of norm and criterion referencing with marks and grades being awarded by a combination of predetermined standards and the performance of other students in the subject. The subjects that have a satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading scale will have this clearly identified within the Subject Outline.

Presentation & Referencing

All statements, opinions, conclusions or other intellectual content taken from the work of someone else must be acknowledged, whether their work or ideas are directly quoted, reproduced, summarized or paraphrased. The acknowledgment of someone elses work, by means of an in-text citation, must occur at the point in your writing where you use that information. The basic in-text citation, in the author-date system, consists of the last name of an author and the year of publication of the work, in round brackets. If a direct quotation is being used, a page number is also included. CSU has adopted the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing system. You can download a copy of the APA Referencing Summary from

http://www.csu.edu.au/division/studserv/learning/pdfs/apa.pdf. You should consult this summary when preparing your assignments to ensure that you follow the correct procedures. Further information can be sourced from Robert Perrins Pocket Guide to APA Style (2nd ed.). The Pocket Guide offers guidance on most of the referencing and style questions you are likely to encounter. The following Basic Principles are taken directly from the APA Referencing Summary. The Reference List (APA, 2001, pp. 224225, 4.08; Perrin, 2007, p.83, 6b) Your Reference List is an alphabetically arranged list of sources used in your paper. It begins on a new page and has the heading References (centered, not in italics, and not underlined). The references are double spaced, and have a hanging indent, as per the examples on the following pages. Hint: begin your Reference List as you start work on your assignment, adding items as you locate each source. This will save time and energy later. When a work has multiple authors, their names appear in the order presented on the title page, not alphabetical order. The names of up to and including six authors are listed, with all of their names inverted (e.g. Smith, P.G.). An ampersand (&) joins the last two names in the series. If a work has seven or more authors, the first six are listed completely, followed by the abbreviation et al. (Latin for and others), not italicized, and with a full stop after al. In-Text Citations (APA, 2001, pp. 208209, 3.95; Perrin, 2007, pp. 67 69, 4e) Insert references as you write. If you wait until later, you will be likely to forget the details. When a work has two authors, always cite both names every time the reference occurs in the text. When a work has three, four, or five authors, cite all authors the first time; in subsequent citations, include only the surname of the first author followed by et al. (not italicized) and the year. When a work has six or more authors, cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al. and the year for the first and subsequent citations. [In the reference list, however, provide the initials and surnames of the first six authors, and shorten any remaining authors to et al. (not italicized).] Within a paragraph, you need not include the year in subsequent references so long as this does not lead to confusion. e.g. McLean

(2004, p. 32) has shown the effect of the drought on rural communities ... McLean also demonstrated ...

Plagiarism
It is a serious offence to copy other persons works. Always give credit to sources. Plagiarism will earn you zero mark.

Extensions
NO extensions will be given without documentary evidence of inability to meet deadlines. That means, zero mark will be awarded.

Prepared by Zaved Mannan,

MBA (Aust)

Adjunct Faculty Member International Islamic University, Chittagong.