MAR

27

Business communication (14-co-504)

English as a lingua franca

English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language as a Koiné language, "a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages". ELF is also "defined functionally by its use in intercultural communication rather than formally by its reference to native-speaker norms" whereas English as a foreign language aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native speaker cultural aspects. While lingua francas have been used for centuries, what makes ELF a novel phenomenon is the extent to which it is used – both functionally and geographically. A typical ELF conversation might involve an Italian and a Dane chatting at a coffee break of an international conference held in Brussels, a Spanish tourist asking a local for the way in Berlin, or a Punjabi Indian negotiating with a Tamil Indian salesperson at Chennai.

Features

The way English is used as a lingua franca is heavily dependent on the specific situation of use. Generally speaking, ELF interactions concentrate on function rather than form. In other words, communicative efficiency (i.e. getting the message across) is more important than correctness. As a consequence, ELF interactions are very often hybrid. Speakers accommodate to each other's cultural backgrounds and may also use code-switching into other languages that they know.Based on the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) and additional research, the following features of ELF lexicogrammar have been identified:

•           shift in the use of articles (including some preference for zero articles) as in our countries have signed agreements about this

•           invariant question tags as in you’re very busy today, aren't you? (and use of other similar universal forms)

•           treating ‘who’ and ‘which’ as interchangeable relative pronouns, as in the picture which or a person who

•           shift of patterns of preposition use, for example we have to study about

•           preference for bare and/or full infinitive over the use of gerunds, as in I'm looking forward to see you tomorrow

•           extension to the collocation field of words with high semantic generality, for example perform an operation

•           increased explicitness, for example how much time instead of how long

•           exploited redundancy, such as ellipsis of objects/complements of transitive verbs as in "I wanted to go with..." or "You can borrow...'"

However, these features are by no means invariant or “obligatory”. Rather, these forms do not seem to compromise effective communication within an ELF setting when they do occur.

"Neutrality" of ELF

While some researchers hold that English as a lingua franca is a neutral and culture-free tool, others hold that it carries the culture and language of its speakers. Recent linguistic discussions by ELF experts treat the interactants’ cultural and linguistic background as a factor influencing language performance. For Hülmbauer, for instance, “it seems likely that the ELF users develop their own markers of identity (be they a common 'European' or 'international' nature or more individual ones which are created online, depending on the community of practice they are emerging).” In this view, ELF is multicultural rather than culture-free.

ELF and the native speaker

ELF is used most often between non-native speakers of English but this fact does not mean that native speakers are excluded from ELF communication. However, very often they form a minority of the interlocutors. In ELF interactions, the importance lies on communication strategies other than nativeness, which can lead to communicative situations where those English native speakers who are not familiar with ELF and/or intercultural communication are at a disadvantage because they do not know how to use English appropriately in these situations.

An important issue when discussing ELF is the notion of speakers of ELF being active language users in their own right, who do not need to adhere to native speaker norms but use ELF to meet their communicative needs. Proponents of ELF thus reject the notion that it is a form of ‘deficient’ English and describe ELF speakers as users of English, not as learners.

Attitude and motivation

Several attitude studies on the topic of ELF have already been conducted. One overarching factor seems to be a discrepancy between perceptions on the role of ELF in everyday interactions all over the globe on the one hand and the dominance of as well as reliance on native speaker norms on the other hand. Breiteneder argues that learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) often have an integrative motivation for learning and using English since they wish to identify with the culture and values of English native speakers. Thus, native speaker norms occupy a central place if English is studied as a foreign language. In contrast, English as Lingua Franca users tend to focus on effective communication with speakers of other linguistic backgrounds. In ELF interactions, intelligibility is key, which may not necessitate an advantage for native speakers (see above).

Dialects

This is an overview list of dialects of the English language. Dialects are linguistic varieties which may differ inpronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in terms of pronunciation only, seeRegional accents of English.

Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible". English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation), as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localized sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions.

The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into three general categories: the British Isles dialects, those of North America, and those of Australasia. Dialects can be associated not only with place, but also with particular social groups. Within a given English-speaking country, there will often be a form of the language considered to be Standard English – the Standard Englishes of different countries differ, and each can itself be considered a dialect. Standard English is often associated with the more educated layers of society.

•           Europe

United Kingdom

British English:

England

English language in England:

•           Northern (In the northeast, local speech is akin to Scots)[3]

•           Cheshire

•           Cumbrian (Cumbria including Barrovian in Barrow-in-Furness)

•           Geordie (Tyneside)

•           Lancastrian (Lancashire)

•           Mackem (Sunderland)

•           Mancunian (Manchester)

•           Northumbrian (rural Northumberland)

•           Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland)

•           Scouse (Liverpool)

•           Smoggie (Teesside)

•           Yorkshire (also known as Broad Yorkshire)

•           East Midlands

•           West Midlands

•           Black Country

•           Brummie (Birmingham)

•           Potteries (north Staffordshire)

•           Telford (east Shropshire)

•           East Anglian

•           Norfolk

•           Suffolk

•           Southern

•           Received Pronunciation

•           Cockney (working-class London and surrounding areas)

•           Essaxon (Essex)

•           Estuary (Thames Estuary)

•           Kentish (Kent)

•           Multicultural London (Inner London)

•           Sussex

•           West Country

•           Anglo-Cornish

•           Bristolian

Scotland

•           Scottish English

•           Highland English

Wales

•           Welsh English

•           Cardiff

•           Gower

Northern Ireland

•           Ulster English

•           Belfast

•           Derry

•           South Ulster

Isle of Man

•           Manx English

Channel IslandsChannel Island English

Republic of Ireland

Hiberno-English:

•           Cork

•           Dublin

•           Dublin 4 (D4)

•           Inner city

•           Donegal

•           Kerry

•           Limerick city

•           Midlands

•           North East

•           Sligo town

•           Waterford city

•           West

•           Wexford town

ExtinctForth and Bargy dialect, thought to have been a descendant of Middle English, spoken in County Wexford[4][5]

•           Fingallian, another presumed descendant of Middle English, spoken in Fingal[4]

North America

North American English

United States[edit]

American English:

•           Cultural and ethnic American English

•           African American Vernacular English

•           Cajun Vernacular English

•           Latino Vernacular Englishes

•           Chicano English

•           Miami English

•           New York Latino English

•           Pennsylvania Dutch English

•           Yeshiva English

•           General American English

•           General American: the "standard" or "mainstream" spectrum of American English.

•           Regional and local American English

•           Eastern New England

•           Boston: Greater Boston, including most of eastern Massachusetts

•           Maine

•           Rhode Island

•           Mid-Atlantic (Delaware Valley)

•           Baltimore

•           Philadelphia

•           Midland

•           North Midland: Kansas City, Omaha, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis

•           South Midland: Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Southern Illinois, southern Missouri, southern Kansas, andOklahoma

•           New York City

•           Northern

•           Inland Northern: Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Western New York, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the overall U.S. Great Lakes region

•           St. Louis (in transition)

•           Western New England: Connecticut, Hudson Valley, western Massachusetts, and Vermont

•           North Central (Upper Midwestern)

•           Upper Peninsula of Michigan ("Yooper")

•           Southern

•           Appalachian

•           "Hoi Toider"

•           New Orleans

•           Ozarks

•           Texan

•           Western

•           Californian

•           New Mexican

•           Northwestern

•           Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh)

•           Extinct or near-extinct American English

•           Boston Brahmin accent

•           Locust Valley lockjaw

•           Older Southern American English

•           Transatlantic accent

Canada

Canadian English:

•           Atlantic Canadian English

•           Cape Breton English

•           Lunenburg English

•           Newfoundland English

•           Standard Canadian English

•           Quebec English

•           Ottawa Valley English

•           Pacific Northwest English

Bermuda

•           Bermudian English

Indigenous North America

Native American English dialects:

•           Mojave English

•           Isletan English

•           Tsimshian English

•           Lumbee English

•           Tohono O'odham English

•           Inupiaq English

Central and South America

Belize

•           Belizean English

Falkland Islands

•           Falkland Islands English

GuyanaGuyanese English

Honduras

•           Bay Islands English

Caribbean

•           Caribbean English

Antigua

•           Antiguan English

AnguillaAnguillan English

The Bahamas

•           Bahamian English

Barbados

•           Bajan English

Jamaica

•           Jamaican English

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

•           Vincentian English

Trinidad and Tobago

•           Trinidadian English

Asia

Brunei

•           Brunei English

BurmaBurmese English

Hong Kong

•           Hong Kong English

Pakistan

•           Pakistani English

India

•           Indian English

•           Punjabi/Delhi English

•           U.P/Bihari English

•           Bengali/Assamese English

•           Oriya English

•           Gujarati English

•           Maharashtrian English

•           Telugu English

•           Tamil English

•           Malayalee English

Nepal

•           Nepali English

Malaysia

•           Malaysian English (Manglish)

Philippines

•           Philippine English (PhE)

Singapore

•           Singapore English (SE)

Sri Lanka

•           Sri Lankan English (SLE)

Africa

Cameroon

•           Cameroonian English

Kenya

•           Kenyan English

Liberia

•           Liberian English

Malawi

•           Malawian English

Namibia

•           Namlish

Nigeria

•           Nigerian English

South Africa

•           South African English

•           Black South African English

•           Acrolect

•           Mesolect

•           Cape Flats English

•           Indian South African English

•           White South African English

•           Broad accent

•           General accent

•           Cultivated accent

South Atlantic

•           South Atlantic English spoken on Tristan da Cunha and Saint Helena[6]

UgandaUgandan English

Oceania

Australia

Australian English (AusE, AusEng):

•           Cultural

•           General Australian

•           Broad Australian

•           Cultivated Australian

•           Australian Aboriginal English

•           Regional

•           South Australian English

•           Western Australian English

•           Torres Strait English

•           Victorian English

•           Queensland English

New Zealand

New Zealand English (NZE, NZEng):

•           Maori English

•           Southland accent

•           Taranaki Accent

Constructed

•           Basic English

•           E-Prime

•           European English

•           Globish

•           Newspeak

•           Special English

•           Simplified English

Manual encodings

•           British Signed English

•           US Signed Exact English (SEE)

•           Australasian Signed English

These encoding systems should not be confused with sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language, which, while they are informed by English, have their own grammar and vocabulary.

Code-switching

The following are portmanteaus devised to describe certain local varieties of English and other linguistic phenomena involving English. Although similarly named, they are actually quite different in nature, with some being genuine mixed languages, some being instances of heavy code-switching between English and another language, some being genuine local dialects of English used by first-language English speakers, and some being non-native pronunciations of English. A few portmanteaus (such as Greeklish and Fingilish) are transliteration methods rather than any kind of spoken variant of English.

•           Anglish (English stressing words of Germanic origin)

•           Arabish (Arabic English, mostly chat romanization)

•           Army creole (military dialect of acronyms and profanity)

•           Benglish (Bengali English)

•           Bislish (Bisaya English)

•           Corsish (Corsican English)

•           Chinglish (Chinese English)

•           Czenglish (Czech English)

•           Danglish (Danish English)

•           Dunglish (Dutch English)

•           Engrish/Japlish (Japanese English) - most popularly refers to broken English used by Japanese in attempts at foreign branding.

•           Finglish (Finnish English)

•           Franglais (French English)

•           Denglisch/Germlish/Genglish/Ginglish/Germish/Pseudo-Anglicism (German English)

•           Greeklish (Greek English)

•           Hebrish (Hebrew English, chat romanization) – also sometimes used to refer to English written with Hebrew characters

•           Hinglish (Hindi English)

•           Hunglish (Hungarian English)

•           İngilazca (English with Karadeniz-Turkish accent)

•           Italgish (Italian English)

•           Konglish (South Korean English)

•           Manglish (Malaysian English)

•           Malglish (Maltese English)

•           Norwenglish (Norwegian English)

•           Poglish/Ponglish (Polish English)

•           Porglish (Portuguese English)

•           Punglish (Punjabi English)

•           Rominglish/Romglish (Romanian English)

•           Runglish (Russian English)

•           Serblish (Serbian English) and Cronglish/Croglish/Croenglish

•           Sardish (Sardinian English)

•           Sheng (a Swahili-English cant; originated among urban youths Nairobi, Kenya)

•           Siculish (Sicilian English)

•           Singlish (Singapore English, multiple pidgins)

•           Spanglish (Spanish English)

•           Swanglish/Kiswanglish (Swahili English)

•           Swenglish (Swedish English)

•           Taglish (Tagalog English)

•           Tanglish (Tamil and English)

•           Tenglish (Telugu and English)

•           Tinglish/Thailish (Thai English)

•           Ukrainglish (Ukrainian English)

•           Vinish (Vietnamese English)

•           Wenglish (Welsh English)

•           Yeshivish (Yeshiva English)

Business Communication

What is Communication?

The word communication has derived from Latin word “Communis” (meaning to share). The meaning of this word is common or general.

Some writers opine that the word communication has come from French word “Communing”. The meaning of the word is “the act ofcommunicating”.

Communication is the process of exchanging thoughts, messages, ideas, news, feelings, emotions and expression of things or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.

This exchange occurs between two or more persons. When one person transmits or sends any information to another and he or she receives the information and ensured by feedback, is termed as communication.

Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender.

Some Important Definitions of Communications

Newman and Summer Jr. – “Communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.”

According to American Management Association– “Communication is one kind of behavior that is the result of transmitting facts.”

David H. Holt– “Communication is interpersonal process of sending and receiving messages through symbols or gesture.”

What is Business?

Business is a service of activities which is directed to conduct the trade and produce the goods to earn profit.

A business (also known as enterprise or firm) is an organization involved in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers.

The etymology of “business” relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society, as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work.

What is Business Communication?

When business related information’s are transmitted from one person to another person, it is called business communication.

Such types of communication occur internally or externally.

If business oriented events, thoughts and emotions or transactions are exchanged among the businessmen, it is called business communication.

Small talk

Small talk is an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed.

Small talk is conversation for its own sake. The phenomenon of small talk was initially studied in 1923 by Bronisław Malinowski, who coined the term "phaticcommunication" to describe it. The ability to conduct small talk is a social skill; hence, small talk is some type of social communication. Early publications assume networked work positions as suitable for social communication.

Purpose

In spite of seeming to have little useful purpose, small talk is a bonding ritual and a strategy for managing interpersonal distance.It serves many functions in helping to define the relationships between friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances. In particular, it helps new acquaintances to explore and categorize each other's social position. Small talk is closely related to the need for people to maintain positive face and feel approved of by those who are listening to them. It lubricates social interactions in a very flexible way, but the desired function is often dependent on the point in the conversation at which the small talk occurs:

1.         Conversation opener: when the speakers do not know each other, it allows them to show that they have friendly intentions and desire some sort of positive interaction. In a business meeting, it enables people to establish each other's reputation and level of expertise. If there is already a relationship between the two talkers, their small talk serves as a gentle introduction before engaging in more functional topics of conversation. It allows them to signal their own mood and to sense the mood of the other person.

2.         At the end of a conversation: suddenly ending an exchange may risk appearing to reject the other person. Small talk can be used to mitigate that rejection, affirm the relationship between the two people, and soften the parting.

3.         Space filler to avoid silence: in many cultures, silences between two people are usually considered uncomfortable. Tension can be reduced by starting phatic talk until a more substantial subject arises. Generally, humans find prolonged silence uncomfortable, and sometimes unbearable. That can be due to human evolutionary history as a social species, as in many other social animals, silence is a communicative sign of potential danger.

In some conversations, there is no specific functional or informative element at all. The following example of small talk is between two colleagues who pass each other in a hallway:

William: Morning, Paul.

Paul: Oh, morning, William, how are you?

William: Fine, thanks. Have a good weekend?

Paul: Yes, thanks. Catch you later.

William: OK, see you.

In thay example, the elements of phatic talk at the beginning and end of the conversation have merged. The entire short conversation is a space-filler. This type of discourse is often called chatter.

The need to use small talk depends upon the nature of the relationship between the people having the conversation. Couples in an intimate relationship can signal their level of closeness by a lack of small talk. They can comfortably accept silence in circumstances that would be uncomfortable for two people who were only casual friends.

In workplace situations, small talk tends to occur mostly between workers on the same level, but it can be used by managersas a way of developing the working relationships with the staff who report to them. Bosses who ask their employees to workovertime may try to motivate them by using small talk to temporarily decrease their difference in status.

The balance between functional conversation and small talk in the workplace depends on the context and is also influenced by the relative power of the two speakers. It is usually the superior who defines the conversation because they have the power to close the small talk and "get down to business."

Topics

The topics of small talk conversations are generally less important than their social function. The selected topic usually depends on any pre-existing relationship between the two people, and the circumstances of the conversation. In either case, someone initiating small talk will tend to choose a topic for which they can assume a shared background knowledge, to prevent the conversation being too one-sided.

Topics can be summarised as being either direct or indirect. Direct topics include personal observations such as healthor looks. Indirect topics refer to a situational context such as the latest news, or the conditions of the communicative situation. Some topics are considered to be "safe" in most circumstances, such as the weather, sports and television. Asking about the weather, however, should be avoided unless there exists follow-up discussion. Otherwise, the conversation will stall, and it will be the conversation starter's fault.

The level of detail offered should not overstep the bounds of interpersonal space. When asked "How are you?" by an acquaintance they do not know well, a person is likely to choose a simple, generalised reply such as "I am good, thank you." In this circumstance it would usually not be appropriate for them to reply with a list of symptoms of any medical conditions they were suffering from. To do so would assume a greater degree of familiarity between the two people than is actually the case, and this may create an uncomfortable situation.

Conversational patterns

A study of small talk in situations which involve the chance meeting of strangers has been carried out by Klaus Schneider. He theorises that such a conversation consists of a number of fairly predictable segments, or "moves". The first move is usually phrased so that it is easy for the other person to agree. It may be either a question, or a statement of opinion with atag question. For example, an opening line such as "Lovely weather, isn't it?" is a clear invitation for agreement. The second move is the other person's response. In functional conversations that address a particular topic, Grice's Maxim of Quantitysuggests that responses should contain no more information than was explicitly asked for. Schneider claims that one of the principles of small talk contradicts the Maxim of Quantity. He suggests that politeness in small talk is maximised by responding with a more substantial answer. Going back to the example of "Lovely weather, isn't it?", to respond factually by just saying "Yes" (or even "No") is less polite than saying, "Yes, very mild for the time of year". Schneider describes that subsequent moves may involve an acknowledgement such as "I see", a positive evaluation such as "That's nice", or what's called "idling behaviour", such as "Mmm", or "Really?".

Gender differences

Speech patterns between women tend to be more collaborative than those of men, and tend to support each other's involvement in the conversation. Topics for small talk are more likely to include compliments about some aspect of personal appearance. For example, "That dress really suits you." Small talk between women who are friends may also involve a greater degree of self disclosure. Topics may cover more personal aspects of their life, their troubles, and their secrets. This self-disclosure both generates a closer relationship between them and is also a signal of that closeness.

By contrast, men's small talk tends to be more competitive. It may feature verbal sparring matches, playful insults, andputdowns. However, in a way these are also both creators and signals of solidarity; the men are signalling that they are comfortable enough with each other's company to be able to say these things without them being taken as insults.

Cultural differences

Small talk rules and topics can differ widely between cultures. Weather is a common topic in regions where the climate has great variation and can be unpredictable. Questions about the family are usual in some Asian and Arab countries. In cultures or contexts that are status-oriented, such as China and Japan, small talk between new acquaintances may feature questions that enable social categorization of each other. Differences among members of various cultural groups in aspects of their attitudes to small talk and ways of dealing with small talk situations are considered to be rooted in their socioculturally ingrained perception of interpersonal relationships  In many European cultures it is common to discuss the weather, politics or the economy, although in some countries personal finance issues such as salary are considered taboo.

Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication between people is communication through sending and receiving wordless clues.

It includes the use of visual cues such as body language (kinesics), distance (proxemics) and physical environments/appearance, of voice (paralanguage) and of touch (haptics). It can also include chronemics (the use of time) and oculesics (eye contact and the actions of looking while talking and listening, frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate).

Just as speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, includingvoice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress, so written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on interaction between individuals where it can be classified into three principal areas: environmental conditions where communication takes place, physical characteristics of the communicators, and behaviors of communicators during interaction.

Nonverbal communication involves the processes of encoding and decoding. Encoding is the act of generating the information such as facial expressions, gestures, and postures. Decoding is the interpretation of information from received sensations from previous experiences.

Only a small percentage of the brain processes verbal communication. As infants, nonverbal communication is learned from social-emotional communication, making the face rather than words the major organ of communication. As children become verbal communicators, they begin to look at facial expressions, vocal tones, and other nonverbal elements more subconsciously.

Culture plays an important role in nonverbal communication, and it is one aspect that helps to influence how learning activities are organized. In many Indigenous American Communities, for example, there is often an emphasis on nonverbal communication, which acts as a valued means by which children learn. In this sense, learning is not dependent on verbal communication; rather, it is nonverbal communication which serves as a primary means of not only organizing interpersonal interactions, but also conveying cultural values, and children learn how to participate in this system from a young age.

Nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all communication. Nonverbal communication can portray a message both vocally and with the correct body signals or gestures. Body signals comprisephysical features, conscious and unconscious gestures and signals, and the mediation of personal space. The wrong message can be established if the body language conveyed does not match a verbal message. Nonverbal communication strengthens a first impression in common situations like attracting a partner or in a business interview: impressions are on average formed within the first four seconds of contact. First encounters or interactions with another person strongly affect a person's perception. When the other person or group is absorbing the message, they are focused on the entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, 2% touch and 1% taste.

History of research

Scientific research on nonverbal communication and behavior was started in 1872 with the publication of Charles Darwin’s book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In the book, Darwin argued that all mammals, both humans and animals, showed emotion through facial expressions. He posed questions such as: “Why do our facial expressions of emotions take the particular forms they do?” and “Why do we wrinkle our nose when we are disgusted and bare our teeth when we are enraged?” Darwin attributed these facial expressions to serviceable associated habits, which are behaviors that earlier in our evolutionary history had specific and direct functions. For example, a species that attacked by biting, baring the teeth was a necessary act before an assault and wrinkling the nose reduced the inhalation of foul odors. In response to the question asking why facial expressions persist even when they no longer serve their original purposes, Darwin’s predecessors have developed a highly valued explanation. According to Darwin, humans continue to make facial expressions because they have acquired communicative value throughout evolutionary history. In other words, humans utilize facial expressions as external evidence of their internal state. Although The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was not one of Darwin’s most successful books in terms of its quality and overall impact in the field, his initial ideas started the abundance of research on the types, effects, and expressions of nonverbal communication and behavior.

Despite the introduction of nonverbal communication in the 1800s, the emergence of behaviorism in the 1920s paused further research on nonverbal communication. Behaviorism is defined as the theory of learning that describes people’s behavior as acquired through conditioning. Behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner trained pigeons to engage in various behaviors to demonstrate how animals engage in behaviors with rewards.

While most psychology researchers were exploring behaviorism, the study of nonverbal communication began in 1955 byAdam Kendon, Albert Scheflen, and Ray Birdwhistell. They analyzed a film using an analytic method called context analysis. Context analysis is the method of transcribing observed behaviors on to a coding sheet. This method was later used in studying the sequence and structure of human greetings, social behaviors at parties, and the function of posture during interpersonal interaction. Birdwhistell pioneered the original study of nonverbal communication, which he called kinesics. He estimated that humans can make and recognize around 250,000 facial expressions.

Research on nonverbal communication rocketed during the mid 1960s by a number of psychologists and researchers.Argyle and Dean, for example, studied the relationship between eye contact and conversational distance. Ralph V. Exline examined patterns of looking while speaking and looking while listening. Eckhard Hess produced several studies pertaining to pupil dilation that were published in Scientific American. Robert Sommer studied the relationship between personal space and the environment. Robert Rosenthal discovered that expectations made by teachers and researchers can influence their outcomes, and that subtle, nonverbal cues may play an important role in this process. Albert Mehrabian studied the nonverbal cues of liking and immediacy. By the 1970s, a number of scholarly volumes in psychology summarized the growing body of research, such as Shirley Weitz’s Nonverbal Communication and Marianne LaFrance and Clara Mayo’sMoving Bodies. Popular books included Body Language (Fast, 1970), which focused on how to use nonverbal communication to attract other people, and How to Read a Person Like a Book (Nierenberg & Calero, 1971) which examined nonverbal behavior in negotiation situations. The Journal of Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior were also founded in 1978. 

Posture

There are many different types of body positioning to portray certain postures, including slouching, towering, legs spread, jaw thrust, shoulders forward, and arm crossing. The posture or bodily stance exhibited by individuals communicates a variety of messages whether good or bad. Posture can be used to determine a participant's degree of attention or involvement, the difference in status between communicators, and the level of fondness a person has for the other communicator, depending on body "openness".Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships suggest that mirror-image congruent postures, where one person's left side is parallel to the other person's right side, leads to favorable perception of communicators and positive speech; a person who displays a forward lean or decreases a backward lean also signifies positive sentiment during communication.

Posture can be situation-relative, that is, people will change their posture depending on the situation they are in.

Clothing

Clothing is one of the most common forms of non-verbal communication. The study of clothing and other objects as a means of non-verbal communication is known as artifactics or objectics. The types of clothing that an individual wears conveys nonverbal cues about his or her personality, background and financial status, and how others will respond to them. An individual's clothing style can demonstrate their culture, mood, level of confidence, interests, age, authority, and values/beliefs. For instance, Jewish men may wear yamakas to outwardly communicate their religious belief. Similarly, clothing can communicate what nationality a person or group is, for example, in traditional festivities Scottish men often wear kilts to specify their culture.

Aside from communicating a person’s beliefs and nationality, clothing can be used as a nonverbal cue to attract others. Men and women may shower themselves with accessories and high-end fashion in order to attract partners they are interested in. In this case, clothing is used as a form of self-expression in which people can flaunt their power, wealth, sex appeal, or creativity. A study of the clothing worn by women attending discothèques, carried out in Vienna, Austria, showed that in certain groups of women (especially women who were without their partners), motivation for sex and levels of sexualhormones were correlated with aspects of their clothing, especially the amount of skin displayed and the presence of sheer clothing.

The way one chooses to dress tells a lot about one’s personality. In fact, there was a study done at the University of North Carolina, which compared the way undergraduate women chose to dress and their personality types. The study showed that women who dressed “primarily for comfort and practicality were more self-controlled, dependable, and socially well adjusted” (“Sarasota Journal” 38). Women who didn’t like to stand out in a crowd had typically more conservative and traditional views and beliefs. Clothing, although non-verbal, tells people what your personality is like. The way a person dresses is typically rooted from deeper internal motivations such as emotions, experiences and culture (“Forbes”). Clothing expresses who you are, or even, who you want to be that day. It shows people who you want to be associated with, and where you fit in. Clothing can start relationships, because you’re cluing other people in on what you are like (“Sarasota Journal” 38).

Gestures

Gestures may be made with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of the head, face and eyes, such aswinking, nodding, or rolling one's eyes. Although the study of gesture is still in its infancy, some broad categories of gestures have been identified by researchers. The most familiar are the so-called emblems or quotable gestures. These are conventional, culture-specific gestures that can be used as replacement for words, such as the hand wave used in western cultures for "hello" and "goodbye." A single emblematic gesture can have a very different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from complimentary to highly offensive. For a list of emblematic gestures, see List of gestures. There are some universal gestures like the shoulder shrug.

Gestures can also be categorized as either speech independent or speech related. Speech-independent gestures are dependent upon culturally accepted interpretation and have a direct verbal translation. A wave or a peace sign are examples of speech-independent gestures. Speech-related gestures are used in parallel with verbal speech; this form of nonverbal communication is used to emphasize the message that is being communicated. Speech-related gestures are intended to provide supplemental information to a verbal message such as pointing to an object of discussion.

Facial expressions, more than anything, serve as a practical means of communication. With all the various muscles that precisely control mouth, lips, eyes, nose, forehead, and jaw, human faces are estimated to be capable of more than ten thousand different expressions. This versatility makes non-verbals of the face extremely efficient and honest, unless deliberately manipulated. In addition, many of these emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, shame, anguish and interest are universally recognized.

Displays of emotions can generally be categorized into two groups: negative and positive. Negative emotions usually manifest as increased tension in various muscle groups: tightening of jaw muscles, furrowing of forehead, squinting eyes, or lip occlusion (when the lips seemingly disappear). In contrast, positive emotions are revealed by the loosening of the furrowed lines on the forehead, relaxation of the muscles around the mouth, and widening of the eye area. When individuals are truly relaxed and at ease, the head will also tilt to the side, exposing our most vulnerable area, the neck. This is a high-comfort display, often seen during courtship, that is nearly impossible to mimic when tense or suspicious.

Gestures can be subdivided into three groups:

Symbolic

Other hand movements are considered to be gestures. They are movements with specific, conventionalized meanings called symbolic gestures. Familiar symbolic gestures include the “raised fist,” “bye-bye,” and “thumbs up.” In contrast to adapters, symbolic gestures are used intentionally and serve a clear communicative function. Every culture has their own set of gestures, some of which are unique only to a specific culture. Very similar gestures can have very different meanings across cultures. Symbolic gestures are usually used in the absence of speech, but can also accompany speech.

Conversational

The middle ground between adapters and symbolic gestures is occupied by conversational gestures. These gestures do not refer to actions or words, but do accompany speech. Conversational gestures are hand movements that accompany speech, and are related to the speech they accompany. Though they do accompany speech, conversational gestures are not seen in the absence of speech and are only made by the person who is speaking.

Distance

According to Edward T. Hall, the amount of space we maintain between ourselves and the persons with whom we are communicating shows the importance of the science of proxemics. In this process, it is seen how we feel towards the others at that particular time. Within American culture Hall defines four primary distance zones: (i) intimate (touching to eighteen inches) distance, (ii) Personal (eighteen inches to four feet) distance, (iii) Social (four to twelve feet) distance, and (iv) Public (more than twelve feet) distance. Intimate distance is considered appropriate for familiar relationships and indicates closeness and trust. Personal distance is still close but keeps another "at arm's length" the most comfortable distance for most of our interpersonal contact, social distance is used for the kind of communication that occurs in business relationships and, sometimes, in the classroom. Public distance occurs in situations where two-way communication is not desirable or possible

Eye contact

Information about the relationship and affect of these two skaters is communicated by their body posture,eye gaze and physical contact.

Eye contact is the instance when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time; it is the primary nonverbal way of indicating engagement, interest, attention and involvement. Studies have found that people use their eyes to indicate interest. This includes frequently recognized actions of winking and movements of the eyebrows.Disinterest is highly noticeable when little or no eye contact is made in a social setting. When an individual is interested however, the pupils will dilate.

According to Eckman, "Eye contact (also called mutual gaze) is another major channel of nonverbal communication. The duration of eye contact is its most meaningful aspect." Generally speaking, the longer there is established eye contact between two people, the greater the intimacy levels. Gaze comprises the actions of looking while talking and listening. The length of a gaze, the frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate are all important cues in nonverbal communication. "Liking generally increases as mutual gazing increases."

Along with the detection of disinterest, deceit can also be observed in a person. Hogan states "when someone is being deceptive their eyes tend to blink a lot more. Eyes act as leading indicator of truth or deception," Both nonverbal and verbal cues are useful when detecting deception. It is typical for people who are detecting lies to rely consistently on verbal cues but this can hinder how well they detect deception. Those who are lying and those who are telling the truth possess different forms of nonverbal and verbal cues and this is important to keep in mind. In addition, it is important to note that understanding the cultural background of a person will influence how easily deception is detectable because nonverbal cues may differ depending on the culture. In addition to eye contact these nonverbal cues can consist of physiological aspects including pulse rate as well as levels of perspiration. In addition eye aversion can be predictive of deception. Eye aversion is the avoidance of eye contact. Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information. Overall, as Pease states, "Give the amount of eye contact that makes everyone feel comfortable. Unless looking at others is a cultural no-no, lookers gain more credibility than non-lookers"

In concealing deception, nonverbal communication makes it easier to lie without being revealed. This is the conclusion of a study where people watched made-up interviews of persons accused of having stolen a wallet. The interviewees lied in about 50% of the cases. People had access to either written transcript of the interviews, or audio tape recordings, or video recordings. The more clues that were available to those watching, the larger was the trend that interviewees who actually lied were judged to be truthful. That is, people that are clever at lying can use voice tone and face expression to give the impression that they are truthful. Contrary to popular belief, a liar does not always avoid eye contact. In an attempt to be more convincing, liars deliberately made more eye contact with interviewers than those that were telling the truth. However, there are many cited examples of cues to deceit, delivered via nonverbal (Para verbal and visual) communication channels, through which deceivers supposedly unwittingly provide clues to their concealed knowledge or actual opinions. Most studies examining the nonverbal cues to deceit rely upon human coding of video footage (c.f. Vrij, 2008), although a recent study also demonstrated bodily movement differences between truth-tellers and liars using an automated body motion capture system.

Across cultures

While not traditionally thought of as “talk,” nonverbal communication has been found to contain highly precise and symbolic meanings, similar to verbal speech. However the meanings in nonverbal communication are conveyed through the use of gesture, posture changes, and timing. Nuances across different aspects of nonverbal communication can be found in cultures all around the world. These differences can often lead to miscommunication between people of different cultures, who usually do not mean to offend. Differences can be based in preferences for mode of communication, like the Chinese, who prefer silence over verbal communication. Differences can even be based on how cultures perceive the passage of time. Chronemics, how people handle time, can be categorized in two ways: polychronic which is when people do many activities at once and is common in Italy and Spain, or monochronic which is when people do one thing at a time which is common in America Because nonverbal communication can vary across many axes—gestures, gaze, clothing, posture, direction, or even environmental cues like lighting—there is a lot of room for cultural differences. In Japan, a country which prides itself on the best customer service, workers tend to use wide arm gestures to give clear directions to strangers - accompanied by the ever-present bow to indicate respect.

Gestures

Gestures vary widely across cultures in how they are used and what they mean. A common example is pointing. In the United States, pointing is the gesture of a finger or hand to indicate or "come here please" when beckoning a dog. But pointing with one finger is also considered to be rude by some cultures. Those from Asian cultures typically use their entire hand to point to something. Other examples include, sticking your tongue out. In Western countries, it can be seen as mockery, but in Polynesia it serves as a greeting and a sign of reverence. Clapping is a North American way of applauding, but in Spain is used to summon a waiter at a restaurant. Differences in nodding and shaking the head to indicate agreement and disagreement also exist. Northern Europeans nodding their heads up and down to say “yes”, and shaking their head from side to side to say “no”. But the Greeks have for at least three thousand years used the upward nod for disagreement and the downward nod for agreement.” There are many ways of waving goodbye: Americans face the palm outward and move the hand side to side, Italians face the palm inward and move the fingers facing the other person, French and Germans face the hand horizontal and move the fingers toward the person leaving.Also, it is important to note that gestures are used in more informal settings and more often by children.

Displays of emotion

Emotions are a key factor in nonverbal communication. Just as gestures and other hand movements vary across cultures, so does the way people display their emotions. For example, "In many cultures, such as the Arab and Iranian cultures, people express grief openly. They mourn out loud, while in Asian cultures, the general belief is that it is unacceptable to show emotion openly." For people in Westernized countries, laughter is a sign of amusement, but in some parts of Africa it is a sign of wonder or embarrassment. Emotional expression varies with culture. Native Americans tend to be more reserved and less expressive with emotions. Frequent touches are common for Chinese people; however, such actions like touching, patting, hugging or kissing in America are less frequent and not often publicly displayed.

Nonverbal actions

According to Matsumoto and Juang, the nonverbal motions of different people indicate important channels of communication. Nonverbal actions should match and harmonize with the message being portrayed, otherwise confusion will occur. For instance, an individual would normally not be seen smiling and gesturing broadly when saying a sad message. The author states that nonverbal communication is very important to be aware of, especially if comparing gestures, gaze, and tone of voice amongst different cultures. As Latin American cultures embrace big speech gestures, Middle Eastern cultures are relatively more modest in public and are not expressive. Within cultures, different rules are made about staring or gazing. Women may especially avoid eye contact with men because it can be taken as a sign of sexual interest. In some cultures, gaze can be seen as a sign of respect. In Western culture, eye contact is interpreted as attentiveness and honesty. In Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American cultures, eye contact is thought to be disrespectful or rude, and lack of eye contact does not mean that a person is not paying attention. Voice is a category that changes within cultures. Depending on whether or not the cultures is expressive or non expressive, many variants of the voice can depict different reactions.

The acceptable physical distance is another major difference in the nonverbal communication between cultures. In Latin America and the Middle East the acceptable distance is much shorter than what most Europeans and Americans feel comfortable with. This is why an American or a European might wonder why the other person is invading his or her personal space by standing so close, while the other person might wonder why the American/European is standing so far from him or her. In addition, for Latin Americans, the French, Italians, and Arabs the distance between people is much closer than the distance for Americans; in general for these close distance groups, 1 foot of distance is for lovers, 1.5–4 feet of distance is for family and friends, and 4–12 feet is for strangers. In the opposite way, most Native Americans value distance to protect themselves.

Children's learning in indigenous American communities

Nonverbal communication is commonly used to facilitate learning in indigenous American communities. Nonverbal communication is pivotal for collaborative participation in shared activities, as children from indigenous American communities will learn how to interact using nonverbal communication by intently observing adults. Nonverbal communication allows for continuous keen observation and signals to the learner when participation is needed. In a study on Children from both US Mexican (with presumed indigenous backgrounds) and European American heritages who watched a video of children working together without speaking found that the Mexican-heritage children were far more likely to describe the children’s actions as collaborative, saying that the children in the video were “talking with their hands and with their eyes.” 

A key characteristic of this type of nonverbal learning is that children have the opportunity to observe and interact with all parts of an activity. Many Indigenous American children are in close contact with adults and other children who are performing the activities that they will eventually master. Objects and materials become familiar to the child as the activities are a normal part of everyday life. Learning is done in an extremely contextualized environment rather than one specifically tailored to be instructional.For example, the direct involvement that Mazahua children take in the marketplace is used as a type of interactional organization for learning without explicit verbal instruction. Children learn how to run a market stall, take part in caregiving, and also learn other basic responsibilities through non-structured activities, cooperating voluntarily within a motivational context to participate. Not explicitly instructing or guiding the children teaches them how to integrate into small coordinated groups to solve a problem through consensus and shared space. These Mazahua separate-but-together practices have shown that participation in everyday interaction and later learning activities establishes enculturation that is rooted in nonverbal social experience. As the children participate in everyday interactions, they are simultaneously learning the cultural meanings behind these interactions. Children’s experience with nonverbally organized social interaction helps constitute the process of enculturation.

In Tzotzil, Zinacantec infants communicate with their caregivers through nonverbal means that incorporate them into the social fabric of the community, and give them the opportunity to be a social participant in the community. Young children are embedded within conversations between adults as they interpret to one another the child’s non-verbal language, and are side participants and an addressees in both two-person and multiparty communications. This engagement of infants into adult conversation and social interactions influences the development of the children in those communities, as they are able to take on an active role in learning from toddlerhood.

In some Indigenous communities of the Americas, children reported one of their main reasons for working in their home was to build unity within the family, the same way they desire to build solidarity within their own communities. Most indigenous children learn the importance of putting in this work in the form of nonverbal communication. Evidence of this can be observed in a case study where children are guided through the task of folding a paper figure by observing the posture and gaze of those who guide them through it. This is projected onto homes and communities, as children wait for certain cues from others to initiatively cooperate and collaborate.

This collaboration is referred to in the learning style "Learning by Observing and Pitching In".The prism highlights the features of collaboration as a flexible ensemble with fluid coordination, blending ideas, agendas and pace. Many Indigenous cultures have this manner of learning, and work side by side with adults and children as peers. Children become able to complete a wide range of responsibilities because parents freely allowed their participation in adults’ tasks when they were younger. For example, immigrant US children perform translation work for their families and express pride in their contributions and collaborative orientation to working with their parents. By giving children the chance to prove their work ethic, indigenous communities often see contribution and collaboration from children, especially since their initiative is a lesson taught at young age using facial and body language.

One aspect of nonverbal communication that aids in conveying these precise and symbolic meanings is "context embeddedness." The idea that many children in Indigenous American Communities are closely involved in community endeavors, both spatially and relationally, which help to promote nonverbal communication, given that words are not always necessary. When children are closely related to the context of the endeavor as active participants, coordination is based on a shared reference, which helps to allow, maintain, and promote nonverbal communication. The idea of "context embeddedness" allows nonverbal communication to be a means of learning within Native American Alaskan Athabaskansand Cherokee communities. By observing various family and community social interactions, social engagement is dominated through nonverbal communication. For example, when children elicit thoughts or words verbally to their elders, they are expected to structure their speech carefully. This demonstrates cultural humility and respect as excessive acts of speech when conversational genre shifts reveal weakness and disrespect. This careful self-censorship exemplifies traditional social interaction of Athapaskin and Cherokee Native Americans who are mostly dependent on nonverbal communication.

Nonverbal cues are used by most children in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation community within the parameters of their academic learning environments. This includes referencing Native American religion through stylized hand gestures in colloquial communication, verbal and nonverbal emotional self-containment, and less movement of the lower face to structure attention on the eyes during face-to-face engagement. Therefore, children's approach to social situations within a reservation classroom, for example, may act as a barrier to a predominantly verbal learning environment. Most Warm Springs children benefit from a learning model that suits a nonverbal communicative structure of collaboration, traditional gesture, observational learning and shared references.

It is important to note that while nonverbal communication is more prevalent in Indigenous American Communities, verbal communication is also used. Preferably, verbal communication does not substitute one's involvement in an activity, but instead acts as additional guidance or support towards the completion of an activity.

Role of Leadership in the Contemporary Business

Today, the role of leadership in the contemporary business environment can hardly be underestimated. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the experience of John Walsh, the human resource manager of Norton Pistons, who has managed to lead the company out of the ongoing crisis and made it the industry leader. His experienced and effective leadership approaches to the company contributed to the consistent, qualitative change in the development of the company and relationships between managers and employees within the company. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that the development of effective leadership style depends on the personal and professional skills and inclinations of the leader and his or her ability to take the lead and create conditions favorable for the effective development of the entire company.

The leadership style of John Walsh can be characterized as the transformational leadership. The transformational leadership style, according to the leader, is viewed as the introduction of changes and the involvement of the leader in the development and introduction of the change. In fact, the leader prepares subordinates to the change and encourages them to change their workplace environment and style of work. Ideally, the transformational leadership style creates valuable and positive change in the followers with the end goal of developing followers into leaders.

Do you consider yourself a charismatic leader? Why or why not?

The leader considers himself to be a charismatic leader, who attempts to breed leaders in his subordinates to create an effective team. At the same time, the leader aims at the creation of the team to maintain the growth of the organization and to unite subordinates, who follow his lead and are capable to take effective decisions and make other people follow their lead. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the leader pays a lot of attention to the loyalty of his subordinates. On the other hand, he is always ready to assist to other employees and his subordinates. In such a way, he attempts to develop leadership in his subordinates and enhance the effectiveness of the performance of the organization.

How did you become a leader in your organization?

John Walsh became the leader after seven years of work in the company. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that he worked for the company and started as the human resource manager. He worked for five years in other companies. However, as he started to work in our company, he has proved to be quite successful and revealed the leadership inclinations fast. As a result, he has started to progress since the beginning of his career. In the course of seven years he had become the leader of the company. In this regard, the leader points out that leadership skills were extremely important to reach a tremendous success in the company. At the same time, he pointed out that the development of organizational and communication skills were also essential for his professional developed. On the other hand, his charisma was also extremely important because due to his charisma he had managed to gain the support of employees and respect of other managers that contributed to his fast career progress.

How does your organization develop leaders (or leadership skills)?

The organization provides successful managers opportunities for training to develop their leadership skills. In this regard, the company provides its managers with special training courses. In addition, the company develops knowledge sharing management to develop leadership skills in its managers. Through the close cooperation with each other, managers could share experience and develop their leadership skills. In such a way, the development of leadership skills is effective and does not need substantial investments.

Connections to organizational behavior

The leadership is very important in the contemporary organizations and the organizational behavior depends on the effective leadership style. In this respect, the transformational leadership style is particularly effective, when organizations need changes. In the contemporary business environment, organizations should come prepared to changes because the fast development of technologies and changes in the business environment contributes to the fast development of business and raises the problem of adaptation of changes within the organization. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the experience of John Walsh is quite useful in terms of the improvement of the organizational performance. In addition, the charismatic leadership contributes to the fast development of organizations because the charisma of a leader unites people and helps the organization to reach strategic goals effectively.

reate conditions favorable for the effective development of the entire company.

Cover letter

A cover letter, covering letter, motivation letter, motivational letter or a letter of motivation is a letter of introduction attached to, or accompanying another document such as a résumé or curriculum vitae.

For employment

Job seekers frequently send a cover letter along with their curriculum vitae or applications for employment as a way of introducing themselves to potential employers and explaining their suitability for the desired positions. Employers may look for individualized and thoughtfully written cover letters as one method of screening out applicants who are not sufficiently interested in their positions or who lack necessary basic skills. Cover letters are typically divided into three categories,:

•           The application letter or invited cover letter, which responds to a known job opening

•           The prospecting letter or uninvited cover letter, which inquires about possible positions

•           The networking letter, which requests information and assistance in the sender's job search

Other uses

Resume cover letters may also serve as marketing devices for prospective job seekers. Cover letters are used in connection with many business documents such as loan applications (mortgage loan), contract drafts and proposals, and executed documents. Cover letters may serve the purpose of trying to catch the reader's interest or persuade the reader of something, or they may simply be an inventory or summary of the documents included along with a discussion of the expected future actions the sender or recipient will take in connection with the documents.

Effective Resume

Hiring managers and recruiters alike say they've seen more poorly written resumes cross their desks recently than ever before. Attract more interview offers and ensure your resume doesn't eliminate you from consideration by following these six key tips:

1.   Format Your Resume Wisely "Do the Hiring Managers" Work for Them

No matter how well written, your resume won't get a thorough reading the first time through. Generally a resume gets scanned for 25 seconds. Scanning is more difficult if it is hard to read, poorly organized or exceeds two pages.

•           Use a logical format and wide margins, clean type and clear headings

•           Selectively apply bold and italic typeface that help guide the reader's eye

•           Use bullets to call attention to important points (i.e. accomplishments)

2.   Identify Accomplishments not Just Job Descriptions

Hiring managers, especially in technical fields like engineering, seek candidates that can help them solve a problem or satisfy a need within their company. Consequently, you can't be a solution to their problems without stating how you solved similar problems in other companies and situations.

•           Focus on what you did in the job, NOT what your job was there's a difference

•           Include a one or two top line job description first, then list your accomplishments

•           For each point ask yourself, What was the benefit of having done what I did?

•           Accomplishments should be unique to you, not just a list of what someone else did

•           Avoid using the generic descriptions of the jobs you originally applied for or held

3.   Quantify Your Accomplishments

Q: What's the most common resume mistake?

A: Making too many general claims and using too much industry jargon that does not market the candidate. A resume is a marketing document designed to sell your skills and strengths rather than just portray a bio of the candidate.

•           Include and highlight specific achievements that present a comprehensive picture of your marketability

•           Quantify your achievements to ensure greater confidence in the hiring manager and thereby generate interest percentages, dollars, number of employees, etc.

•           Work backwards to quantify your accomplishments by asking, If I had not done X, what could have happened?

4.   Cater Your Resume for the Industry

Unlike advertising and design professionals who have greater creative license in designing their resume for those fields, the mechanical engineering industry won't be impressed and may be turned off by distinctive resume design.

•           Err on the side of being conservative stylistically

•           Your accomplishments, error-free writing, grammatically-correct, clean, crisp type and paper will make the impression for you

5.   Replace your Objective" with a "Career Summary"

A Career Summary is designed to give a brief overview of who you are and what you do. Most Objectives sound similar: Seeking a challenging, interesting position in X where I can use my skills of X, Y, and Z to contribute to the bottom line. Not telling at all.

•           Grab a hiring manager's attention right from the beginning, remembering you

have only 25 few seconds to make a good impression

•           Spend time developing a summary that immediately gets their attention, and accurately and powerfully describes you as a solution to their problems

6.   Network. Network. Network.

For unemployed candidates, handing out resumes should be a full-time job. The majority of mid- to senior-level positions are filled through networking, so contact absolutely everyone you know in addition to recruiters who are in a position to hire you or share insights. Networking can include

•           Personal business contacts, people you've worked for or who worked for you

•           Vendors and sales representatives you've dealt with in the past five years

•           People listed in the alumni directory of your alma mater

With a solid resume in hand you'll greatly increase your odds of earning a closer look and getting that interview.

Interview

Preparing For The Interview

Your preparation before the day of the interview needs to be on two main fronts:

Research the Organisation

Find out as much as you can about the company.

Look at their website, and any information that they have sent you, and see if you can find their mission, objectives, any value statements and the like. It’s helpful to be familiar with the organisation’s guiding principles. Also try to find out how the job that you have applied for fits into the organisation.

Make a list of the questions about the organisation, ideally around work, such as the team you will be working with, or the work that you will be doing on a daily basis. It’s OK to ask about the on-site gym and the holiday allowance, but don’t sound as if you’re only interested in getting away from work!

It’s probably not a great idea to ask whether you’ll be able to work part-time at this stage. Either you should already have done that before applying, or you need to be prepared to work the hours stated.

About you

You need to sit down with the person specification and your application, and develop some new examples of how you meet at least a few of the requirements. It is fine to talk about the examples on your application form or CV/covering letter, but it’s useful to have a few new ones too. Describe the situation in one sentence or less, and focus on your actions, the results that you achieved, and how you knew you were successful.

It’s also helpful to prepare answers for some of the standard icebreakers, such as ‘Tell me a bit about your current job’, or ‘Tell me why you’ve applied for this job’. Your answers should focus on your skills, and how you can use them in the new job, again based around the person specification. Don’t learn them off by heart, but have a good idea of what you want to say.

Tests and Presentations

Some interviews require you to make a short presentation, or to take a test. The details will always be included in the letter inviting you to interview, so you’ll have time to prepare. If you’ve been asked to make a presentation, don’t assume that there will be PowerPoint, or that you’ll be standing in front of a group.

You may be invited to bring a handout. It’s worth spending a bit of time making a one-page handout that fully summarises your presentation, whether it’s a mind-map, a picture of some sort, or your five key take-home messages. Have a look at our page: Creative Thinking for some ideas. Think about what you want them to remember from your presentation, and make sure that’s clear from your handout.

________________________________________

Attending the Interview

Some General Dos and Don’ts

________________________________________

Do:

•           Arrive in good time. The interview panel may be interviewing a lot of candidates so do not keep them waiting.

•           Dress appropriately. Some organisations, especially technology companies, have a very casual dress code but, for most, a suit will be appropriate interview wear. Remember that you are being judged on the appearance that you present.

•           Act appropriately, which usually means following the interviewer’s lead. If you are offered a hand to shake, then shake it, but don’t offer your own hand if nobody else seems interested.

•           Engage with the interviewers. Smile, make eye contact, and build rapport.

•           Answer the questions that are asked, using relevant examples where at all possible.

Don’t:

•           Be afraid to blow your own trumpet a bit. After all, nobody else is going to blow it for you; however do not lie or exaggerate. If you want the job, be enthusiastic and positive.

•           Be over-familiar or share too much information. For example, the interviewers don’t want to know how you’re going to manage your childcare.

________________________________________

What to Expect in the Interview

How Many Interviewers?

The letter inviting you to interview will probably state who will be interviewing you. It’s often three to five people, because that removes any individual bias, so don’t be surprised to walk in and find a roomful of people. One will probably take the lead, and explain who will be asking questions as well as the role of the others.

When you’re asked a question, reply to the person who asked the question. The others may intervene, either during or after your answer, in which case you’ll also need to reply to the intervention. Again, reply to that person and not to the group generally.

Presentations

If you’ve been invited to give a presentation, you will probably be asked to give it immediately after introductions. Our Presentation Skills section has lots of advice and further reading about preparing for and giving effective presentations and you may find our page Presentations in Interviewsparticularly useful.

If there’s a time limit for your presentation then keep to it. If you can’t see the clock in the room, then put your watch on the table in front of you, to make sure that you’re keeping to time. If you’re running short, cut your presentation and move to the conclusion.

Types of Questions

Interviewers often like to start with an easy ‘ice-breaker’ question, such as ‘What do you do in your current job?” or “Tell us why you applied for this job?” If you’ve done your preparation, you’ll be ready for this.

Modern interviews tend to be ‘competence-based’, which means that they focus on your skills, and how you can demonstrate them.

So questions will often be in the form of:

•           Tell us about the time when you…

•           Can you give us an example of a time when you…

•           From your previous experience, how would you deal with a situation like …

If you don’t have much work experience, don’t worry. Be prepared to say “Well, I haven’t actually had to do that yet, but this is what I would do in the situation”. If you’re being interviewed for a job where you don’t have much experience in the field, the interviewers will usually try to help by giving you hypothetical questions and asking you how you would approach a problem. They know you don’t have much experience, but they’re trying to give you a chance to show that you can do the job.

The interviewers are not trying to trip you up as a general rule so, if you get a question that you don’t understand, just say so and ask them to expand a bit.

There are still interviewers around who believe in the benefits of asking ‘off the wall’ questions like ‘If you were a car, what type would you be?’ and ‘What are your best and worst traits?’ Just humour them! Have a fairly bland and generic reply prepared such as ‘Well, I’m not sure what type of animal/car/bird/whatever I’d be, but I do know that I set myself high standards and am not happy unless I’m working hard!”

At The End

At the end of the interview, you will probably be asked if you have any questions.

It is usually a good idea to ask a few questions about the organisation or role at this point. However, if you really don’t have any questions, perhaps because you spoke to someone from the organisation before the interview and they have answered all your questions, then it’s fine to say so. Do explain that it’s because you spoke to [name] and they were able to answer all your questions ahead of time.

It’s also acceptable to ask when the organisation will expect to let people know the outcome of their application.

It may also be worth asking if there is anything that they feel that you didn’t address as well as you could have done, or that wasn’t entirely clear. It gives you a second chance if you were a bit nervous and didn’t answer as well as you could have done early on.

________________________________________

And Finally…

Before you leave, thank the interview panel for the chance to attend the interview and say that it was nice to meet them. Smile, gain eye contact and shake hands if appropriate. Always leave a good final impression.

You will find out in due course if you were successful. If you were not then it can be a good idea to ask for feedback. You may gain some useful tips and advice to improve your chances at your next interview.

Report

A report or account is any informational work (usually of writing, speech, television, or film) made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form.

Description

A report is an informational work made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form. Reports are often conveyed in writing, speech, television, or film.

Use

Reports fill a vast array of informational needs for many of society's important organizations. Reports are used for keeping track of information, which may be used to make decisions. Written reports are documents which present focused, salient content, generally to a specific audience. Reports are used in government, business, education, science, and other fields, are often to display the result of an experiment, investigation, or inquiry.

Attributes

Reports use features such as graphics, images, voice, or specialized vocabulary in order to persuade that specific audience to undertake an action. One of the most common formats for presenting reports is IMRAD: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. This structure is standard for the genre because it mirrors the traditional publication of scientific research and summons the ethos and credibility of that discipline. Reports are not required to follow this pattern, and may use alternative patterns like the problem-solution format.

Additional elements often used to persuade readers include: headings to indicate topics, to more complex formats including charts, tables, figures, pictures, tables of contents, abstracts,and nouns summaries, appendices, footnotes, hyperlinks, and references.

Types

Some examples of reports are:

•           annual reports

•           auditor's reports

•           book reports

•           bound reports

•           budget reports

•           census reports

•           credit reports

•           demographic reports

•           expense report

•           experience report

•           inspection reports

•           military reports

•           police reports

•           policy reports

•           progress reports

•           recommendation reports

•           investigative reports

•           scientific reports

•           trip reports

•           white papers

•           appraisal reports

•           workplace reports

Group Discussion

A discussion group is a group of individuals with similar interest who gather either formally or informally to bring up ideas, solve problems or give comments. The major approaches are in person, via conference call or website.[1] People respond comments and post forum in established mailing list, news group or IRC.[2] Other group members could choose to respond by posting text or image.

Brief History of discussion group

Discussion group was evolved from USENET which is traced back to early 80's. Two computer scientists Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott founded the idea of setting a system of rules to produce "articles", and then send back to their parallel news group. Fundamentally, the form of discussion group was generated on the concept of USENET, which emphasised ways of communication via email and web forums. Gradually, USENET had developed to be a system of channels which provide notifications and "articles" to meet general public's needs. Nowadays, World Wide Web gradually takes on the major role of supporting and extending platforms for discussion group on the Internet by setting up various web servers.

Overview of online discussion group

Google group

Google Group has been built to be one of the major online discussion groups with a wide range of worldwide frequent users. The following subsections contain information about three popular groups used by the public today:

•Simply search any theme based on personal interest by using the search box on the Google groups homepage, the results would appear after searching. Users could select themes more concisely by refining "date range, language, group or author". Users could join any groups they are interested in or establish their own.

•Three ascending levels are available for "public, announcements-only and restricted".For considering member's accessibility to information, General public commands more flexibility compares to limited users with regulations. In addition, it is a privilege to subscribe a gmail account which enables users to upload documents, send invites, and create webpage.

Facebook group

Facebook group simplifies processes and protects privacy of users when they interact with people. The following guidelines are some general instructions about how to operate groups on Facebook:

• By following instructions on homepage, users could create ideal groups that satisfy their personal needs. After the group is established, the admins are able to make a range of adjustments to the groups pages by upload display pictures and posting note and comments on the group wall. He or she could assist the whole group with events, news updates and members management. Therefore, Facebook groups, generally, diversifies internal communication by sending invitations to friends, colleagues or certain people who share similar demographics. A single user is capable of joining up a maximum "6000 groups".

Whatsapp group

Whatsapp group: Whatsapp, is a mobile SMS and messaging app, it features the function of group discussion as well. Users set group chats to boost the convenience of a proper group discussion. With shared characteristics to Facebook group, the instructions are comparatively similar. Common actions for administrators include: creating group, renaming title, blocking members, deleting irrelevant information through the management.

Advantages

Advantages: the implementation of Google Groups comes with its own advantages. For diverse users, it provides the service of interpreting languages widely, which helps present a better way to communicate effectively with people in different countries. Considering of storage, one group member enjoys "100 megabytes (MB)" while there are no restrictions for the whole group. It delivers convenience for group members work on projects that need considerably more storage than normal files, for example, presentations. Studies conducted by Kushin and Kitchener indicates Facebook provide users in discussion groups with more opportunities to post content that has correlation with "social, political, or sporting issues". For Whatsapp users, the communication service brings enjoyment to share ideas with comparatively low cost. Ideally, it enhanced the quality of communication regarding of its records saving, security and trustability.

• Information in Discussion groups are usually archived. For example, Google's Groups (formerly DejaNews) is an archive of Usenet articles trace back to 1981. Discussion group archives are sometimes an effective way to find an answer to very ambiguous questions.

Academic discussion group

•  Small group of professionals or students formally or informally negotiate about an academic topic within certain fields. This implementation could be seen as an investigation or research based on various academic levels. For instance, "one hundred eighty college-level psychology students" breakdown into different groups to participate in giving an orderly arrangement of preferred events. Nevertheless, discussion groups could support professional services and hold events to a range of demographics; another distinguished example is from "The London Biological Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group", which sustainably operates by gathering "technicians, clinicians, academics, industrialists and students" to exchange ideas on an academic level. It attributes to the development of participants' cognitive, critical thinking, and analytical skills.

Bibliography

www.google.com       

www.yahoo.com

www.wikipedia.com