Describes a class activity to help students gain insights into the collaborative process and to launch them into a collaborative report. (SR)

Discusses a unit on performance appraisals, including writing comments to support ratings, drawing conclusions concerning performance, and making recommendations to improve performance. Provides an assignment requiring students to complete an appraisal form. (SR)

Describes adding lessons on stress management to the business communications classroom. (RS)

Describes a project assignment for a business communication course that is the central organizing principle for the course and addresses researching, interviewing, writing and reporting topics, and the inevitable question of why this course is required. (SR)

Discusses performance appraisals in business. Describes a performance appraisal assignment that involves written assignments, role-playing an appraisal interview, and subsequent discussion of issues that arise. Includes several figures describing assignment activities. (SR)

Describes three approaches to writing a persuasive sales letter that require the student to either taste a product, try out an item, or touch an object before writing the sales letter to a prospective audience. Describes preassignment activities, the assignment, and student reaction to the activities. (SR)

Asserts that textbook graphics assignments tend to give students too many hints and instructions. Suggests using newspaper articles to more closely approximate real working situations, because newspaper articles force students to use their skills and imaginations to create graphics that illustrate real data. (PRA)

Focuses on the collaborative writing done for a large report or proposal over a period of several weeks or months in a business writing course. Discusses short-term writing projects and nonwriting tasks for project administration, meeting management, student/instructor conference, project planning and time estimates, and oral presentations. (PRA)

Describes a class project/case study where students draft a proposal and present it to a board for deliberation. Details how students analyze the current problem and the cause, brainstorm for a preferred and alternative solutions, and discuss advantages and disadvantages. (PRA)

Describes a 10-stage process approach to teaching technical students "definition." Includes an assignment that encourages the use of the defining process. Discusses advantages of the approach. (PRA)

Describes a collaborative writing assignment which features a series of interconnected business messages arising out of a case study and including inhouse memos and an analytical report. Shows how the design of a collaborative writing assignment can foster creative rather than debilitative tension. (RS)

Discusses the difficulties with anticipating reader needs and evaluating a text's effectiveness. Reviews current methods of evaluating audience needs such as peer review and audience testing. Describes a reader-focused assignment detailing the class preparation, peer review, reader testing, reader response, and student response to reader…

Describes a student research project in a business communication course in which student researchers practice a wide variety of communication skills (oral communication, research, writing, and professional writing skills) as they manipulate their collected data into a persuasive report. (SR)

Describes how one teacher of business communication teaches a unit on international communication with the aid of international students. Outlines the steps for carrying out a five-session unit employing foreign students. (HB)

Asserts that a newsletter assignment is a good alternative to the long report. Describes a newsletter assignment that demonstrates how basic requirements for identifying problem and purpose, using primary and secondary sources, and designing graphics are similar to those for the typical long report assignment. (PRA)