This course will emphasize learning through doing. Working individually and in groups, students will be involved in the discussion, analysis and interpretation of various writing activities. Under the instructor’s guidance, students will integrate the results of primary or secondary research with correct language principles in a number of writing situations. Students may be required to write in response to textbook cases, film or video scenarios, field trip experiences, and other workplace situations encountered in the community. Other methods include lectures, group discussions, and presentations by resource people with field-related expertise.
Course content will be drawn from the following areas:
Writing skills:
- coherence and cohesion
- clarity and conciseness
- tone, diction, voice
- mechanics: grammar, sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, etc.
Writing tasks:
- Reports: progress, informational, problem/solution
- Letters and Memos: application, sales, persuasive, bad news, transmittal, to the editor, inquiry, information
- Agenda and Minutes
- Resume
- Process description
- Manual Writing
- Summary
- Brochure
- Newsletter
- Expanded definition
- Press release
- Exercises
Readings:
- Field-related material as content and context for assignments, e.g. summary
- Course handbook
Oral skills:
- Listening and responding
- Preparing: research, organization, prompts
- Delivery
- Physical behaviour
- Use of visuals
Oral tasks:
- Employment interview
- Meetings
- Oral presentations
Other:
- Collaboration or team-work
- Interpersonal communication with readers of writing assignments, with interviewers, and with participants of meetings.
Communications 1111 has been developed to meet the communications requirements of a number of business of technology programs.
General skills:
The student will be able to:
- Write in standard English
- Demonstrate communicative competence, i.e. appropriate communication behaviour in specific communication contexts.
Specific skills:
- The Communications instructor will choose from the following list those skills and tasks appropriate to the business and technologies fields.
Written skills:
The student will be able to:
- Write appropriately for single and multiple readers
- Distinguish objective from subjective statements
- Distinguish internal from external written communication situations
- Use correct language fundamentals in all written assignments
- Write effective sentences
- Write well-developed paragraphs
- Demonstrate unity, coherence, and emphasis
- Prepare written reports using language conventions consistent with appropriate field-related standards and practices
- Compose a set of procedures related to a business or technology subject.
Written tasks:
Students will be able to successfully complete a variety of tasks which the Communications instructor selects from the following:
- Extract and summarize the main points from field-related articles
- Develop an effective application letter and resume
- Compose an informative report on a workplace related topic
- Write effective correspondence in a variety of relevant situations consistent with field-related standards and practices
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and compose an agenda
- Demonstrate the ability to record and compose accurate minutes of a meeting
- Compose an informative brochure
- Compose a newsletter for a field-related organization
- Compose a press release on a field-related event or issue
- Compose a set of procedures related to a business or technology subject
- Demonstrate the ability to research using primary and secondary sources
- Demonstrate the ability to select and analyze researched information and then to present it following the documentation conventions appropriate to the field, avoiding plagiarism.
Oral:
The student should also be able to:
- Prepare for an employment interview
- Plan, prepare and deliver oral presentations
- Apply basic rules of order in formal meetings
- Present motions in meetings.
Other:
- Collaborate effectively with other students
- Interact appropriately with the readers of their written work, job interviewers, and participants at meetings
- Understand basic communication theory as it relates to the student’s chosen field.
- To pass CMNS 1111, students must demonstrate the ability to write in standard English.
- Given the variety of programs for which CMNS 1111 may be adapted, evaluation components may vary significantly.
The following are two current examples of how components and marks have been set up for the course:
CMNS 1111 for Business Management
| Expanded Definition | 5% |
| Summary | 10% |
| Letters and Memos | 30% |
| Information Report | 15% |
| Meeting Skills Quiz | 10% |
| Minutes/Agenda | 10% |
| Application Package (Letter and resume) | 10% |
| Writing Exercises/Participation | 10% |
| 100% |
CMNS 1111 for Health Information Management
| Summary | 10% |
| Letters | 20% |
| Memoranda | 20% |
| Oral Presentation | 10% |
| Meeting Skills | 15% |
| Application Package (Letter and resume) | 10% |
| Miscellaneous | 15% |
| 100% |
No single text is applicable for all career programs or for all course objectives. However, a handbook and/or exercise book is required. The following are examples of possibilities:
- Business Communication: Strategies and Skills by R. Huseman et al.
- Successful Writing at Work by Philip C. Kolin
- Administratively Write! by Ron Blicq