Professional Communication

Full overview

In this course, material is presented to help you strengthen your communication skills to become a more effective communication. The course also focuses on everyday writing, professional presentations, and interpersonal communication.

Explains a number of principles that you should keep in mind before you tap out a single word on the computer. These principles are concerned with the purpose of your communication, the audience and its needs, the message you want the audience to walk away with, and the best medium and timing of delivery.

This lesson aims to get you started—one of the toughest parts of written communication. It offers many suggestions for overcoming writer’s block.

This section explains how to create a reasonably good first draft. This job begins with getting your thoughts out in the open, where they can be logically organized.

Once the draft is created, it will need to be edited for style, content, and accuracy—the subject of lesson 4. Some styles are appropriate for directing action, conveying facts, or delivering news—good and bad. Others are more appropriate for being convincing. You’ll learn how to choose a style that matches your purpose and how to fine-tune your writing.

Once you’ve learned the principles of good writing and how to draft and edit your work, you can apply what you’ve learned to virtually any form of written document: a report, a letter, and so forth. In lesson 5, we take up the particulars of the three most common written forms: memos, letters, and e-mail. Each has features you need to understand if you want to get your ideas across—and stay out of trouble.

Lesson 6 involves formal presentations in which you have to stand and deliver in front of a live audience. This chapter describes time-tested principles that you can use as a foundation for your presentations.

Lesson 7 involves more of the presentation preparation and due diligence in creating and designing effective presentations. This chapter moves from principles to six practical steps you can take in preparing those presentations.

Lesson 8 involves the power of speaking effectively. This lesson offers suggestions on achieving the power of delivery advocated by Quintilian. And, naturally, the first suggestion is about speaking.

This lesson is concerned with the one-on-one communication that characterizes the majority of our interpersonal encounters in the workplace. Here you’ll learn how to understand the other person’s perspective and to deal with the other person’s perception of you. You’ll also gain insights into the importance of dialogue, the most productive form of communication between people.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system. This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections. Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.