Preface
This textbook is meant for the college students (non-English major and business major students), and for eager learners who want to improve their English writing capabilities at work. Students and learners often find Business Writing complex and difficult simply because English is not their first language. But if it is presented well, the students and learners usually derive a great deal of satisfaction from it as it helps them develop a good habit of writing and command effective writing strategies, methodologies and skills.
OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK
Business (English) Writing has become a subject taught at the university and vocational college levels. This subject is a live one, full of practical application and challenges in today's ever-changing business environments. As we have seen so many changes in our economic life since the adoption of open- up policy, many modes of writing and terms have fallen out of favor within the business writing practice and vernacular. However, we have still found many textbooks in use are "what-oriented", not "how-oriented." The "what" simply refers to the writing basics, rules, principles and mechanics. These are important aspects in the teaching of business writing, but they are not enough to help the students and learners write in an efficient, effective and productive manner. Technical knowledge and skills - whether of accounting principles, biological processes, or mechanics and physics - are of little value unless you can communicate what that knowledge and those skills mean to others. Differently, the "how" is the writing strategies, process, methodologies and creative activities that the reader can use to solve their real writing problems and communicate with others in writing successfully in the business world. This book aims to combine these two approaches in order to facilitate the classroom teaching of hands-on knowledge of business writing for the dynamic business settings.
The clear-cut organization of this textbook is one of its foremost significant features. Unit 1 provides an introduction and deals with fundamentals of business writing so as to lay a foundation for studies and discussions of the following units. The rest of the textbook cover many modes of business writings, embracing practical or hands-on knowledge of business writing specifications. All texts have been designed, organized and written on the combination of business process topic and elementary approaches. With its high caliber of materials, its consistent humanistic and reader-oriented emphases, and its clear organization, each text is lively, sophisticated but easy-to-use, and eminently usable for the students and learners to write for desired results confidently and successfully.
A second distinct advantage of this textbook is perhaps the primary one for teaching and learning business English writing as a second language. Engagingly written (students and learners oriented) and illustrated with scores of telling examples (real scenarios) this textbook hopes that the students and learners can identify writing qualities (8 C's) that most typically distinguish good writing from bad and use practical measures (checklists) for avoiding pitfalls skillfully.
The third major strength of this textbook is the uniform apparatus that has been designed for driving business results. The apparatus is systematic in design. For each unit, there is a brief introduction, text contents and concluding remarks. After each unit, there are various writing practices. These questions (mostly thought-provoking) are organized in a common format created to reinforce essential writing, oral communication skills.
The final feature of this book design and organization reflects the writers' innermost conviction that business writing begins with purpose and ends with result. The textbook focuses on business results for business writing. In business, communication is not an end in itself. It is a critical management tool for accelerating change and improving performance, including facilitating international economic transactions. In fact, several research studies have proven that there is a strong correlation between high-performing organizations and effective written communication practices. This work is grounded in this belief -- starting with a thorough understanding of employers' and employees' needs, dynamic and ever-changing business contexts, environments and priorities, including the company's human capital strategies, and planning all communication solutions or textbook design and organization, or deployment of teaching tasks to help drive business results.
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