Gwybodaeth Modiwlau

Module Identifier
MM20110
Module Title
WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS IN MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS
Academic Year
2011/2012
Co-ordinator
Mr John Morgan
Semester
Semester 1
Mutually Exclusive
MM31120

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Seminars / Tutorials 10 x 2 hours (1 per week = 10 seminars)
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment Identify and select a case study document within fields of management and business and write a critical review of the paper (500 words).  20%
Semester Assessment Identify and select comparative academic and professional media documents to analyse differences in audience characteristics and subsequent styles of writing (500 words).  20%
Semester Assessment Interpret the requirements of a given essay/report question requiring critical review of the strengths and weaknesses in selected comparative documents (500 words).  20%
Semester Assessment Essay/report (1500 words).  40%
Supplementary Assessment Resit assessment: students will re-submit any failed assignments from 1-4, identifying a new topic that is distinct from the original failed piece(s) of work. The word count will be dependent on the actual failed tasks, but will not exceed the original word counts identified above. The maximum word count for re-submission will be 3000 words. 

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

  1. Analyse and appropriately interpret the needs of a given writing brief;
  2. Display a critical awareness of the differences between academic and professional discourse;
  3. Identify the relative values of reference materials from a wide range of published and media resources;
  4. Evaluate the effectiveness of their own writing, communication and research strategies at all stages of the writing process.

Aims

To enhance the ability for students to develop levels of excellence in academic writing and to contrast this with variable possibilities in the requirements of future professional writing in the fields of Management and Business. This module will be useful for:

  • Second year students who need to further develop writing ability as a result of writing development needs identified from year 1;
  • Second year entry students on internationally agreed 2+2 programmes;
  • Second year students who need to develop an awareness and appreciation of finer nuances of written communication in academic and professional life.


Brief description

The module covers aspects of planning, drafting, re-drafting, editing and submitting written academic work in essay and report format. It will compare and contrast these approaches to writing with approaches required in the workplace and in professional media. To facilitate this students will work with case studies in management and business to identify issues in structural and rhetorical descriptions of written communication and in particular how choices made by individual communicators impact on academic and professional audiences.

Content

The content listed here is categorized into thematic areas and does not represent linear syllabus specification.

  • What is academic and professional English? How is communication at this level shaped by academic and professional communities?
  • Essay and report structures.
  • Identification of critical audience characteristics and how to write to an academic or professional brief.
  • Avoiding plagiarism and bad practice in academic contexts; use of citation, reference, bibliography and acknowledgement.
  • Identification of critical issues in using web-based research material and how to recognise academically and professionally structured text through professional approaches to writing for the web.
  • Language development as required by given student groups; e.g. functions of present and past tenses, active and passive voice, noun phrase sentence patterns and repetition of noun phrases.
  • Revision and redrafting of writing for academic submission and professional publication.

Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Application of Number Structuring and sequencing in essays and reports.
Communication 1. Groupwork within the module; 2. Communicating ideas through sequence of graded tasks.
Improving own Learning and Performance Through all seminars and tasks; written identification through reflective report.
Information Technology Use of computer network for researching essays, identifying case study material, planning and writing essays. Some tasks will be submitted through Blackboard.
Personal Development and Career planning Consideration is given to the needs of professional communication through all tasks.
Problem solving Identifying writing topics, topic analysis, interpreting essay questions, creating writing task, essay and report structures, identifying strategies for learning.
Research skills Independently proposing essay questions, researcing subject matter related to tasks, essays/reports, identifying suitable case study material, reviewing material.
Subject Specific Skills Rhetorical and linguistic analysis of subject specific text and tasks.
Team work Groupwork within module.

Reading List

Recommended Text
Bishop, W On Writing: a Process Reader McGraw Hill; New York Primo search Brookes, A and Grundy, P Writing for Study Purposes: A Teacher's Guide to Developing Individual Writing Skills Cambridge: Primo search Corbett, E.P.J and Connors, R.J. (1999) Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student 4th edition Oxford: Oxford University Press Primo search Huckin, T.N. and Olsen, L.A. (1991) Technical Writing and Professional Communication for Nonnative Speakers of English 2nd Edition New York: McGraw Hill Primo search
Crusius, Timothy W. (2000.) The aims of argument :a brief rhetoric /Timothy W. Crusius, Carolyn E. Channell. Mayfield Pub. Primo search Howe, P. M. (1983) Answering Examination Questions HarperCollins Publishers Limited Primo search Johns, Ann M. (June 1997) Text, Role and Context:Developing Academic Literacies Cambridge University Press Primo search Pope, Rob. (1995.) Textual intervention :critical and creative strategies for literary studies /Rob Pope. Routledge Primo search Sharples, Mike (1999.) How we write :writing as creative design /Mike Sharples. Routledge Primo search Swales, John (Nov. 1990) Genre Analysis:English in Academic and Research Settings Cambridge University Press Primo search Turabian, Kate L. (1987.) A manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations /Kate L. Turabin. University of Chicago Press Primo search

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 5