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Nonverbal Communication

Learning to Speak

Sending effective communication requires skill and an understanding of the audience.


Learning Objectives

Explain the difficulty of sending communications, with a particular focus on improving and enhancing's one's ability to communicate accurately and concisely


Key Takeaways

Key Points

  • The ability to communicate clearly in speaking and in writing is one of the most valuable professional skills.
  • Communicating effectively relies on credibility, which is undermined by grammar and spelling mistakes, incompleteness, and errors in logic.
  • When sending a message, the communicator must keep in mind the target audience.

Key Terms

  • clarity: The state, or measure of being clear, either in appearance, thought or style; lucidity.
  • brevity: The quality of being brief in duration.

The ability to communicate effectively in speech and in writing is one of the most valuable professional skills. Sending messages and information so they are understood as intended and produce the desired effect demands certain technical competencies and interpersonal capabilities. Fortunately, these can be learned and honed through practice.

Communicating effectively relies on credibility. Mistakes in grammar and spelling, incompleteness, and errors in logic can have a negative impact on the audience's perception of the sender's credibility. As a result, the communicator's ability to persuade or otherwise influence the recipient is diminished. Effective ways to learn precise, professional oral and written communication skills include:

  1. having others, such as a supervisor, provide feedback on strengths and weaknesses as a communicator.
  2. analyzing the strengths and techniques of excellent communicators.
  3. imitating strong communicators.


Communicating in the Workplace

When sending a message, communicators must think of the target audience, being sure to use terms and phrases that readers or listeners will understand. For example, texts or e-mails should avoid using abbreviations that the receiver may not recognize. To respect others' time, communication should aim for brevity and concision without sacrificing clarity and completeness. Using e-mail effectively poses particular challenges. Often, messages are poorly structured, missing specific subject lines, slow in getting to the point, or too long to warrant being read in their entirety.

It can be challenging to strike the right tone or avoid the wrong one in electronic communication. The absence of non-verbal cues, such as tone of voice or body language, means that written communication can be more easily misinterpreted and even cause offense. Consequently, important communications may warrant review by someone who can assess the tone and content and provide feedback.

someone texting

Connecting via text message: In texting, reliance on abbreviations can obscure a point.

Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-management/chapter/improving-communication-effectiveness/
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