Which student are you?

Good day everyone, my name is Yap Yi Lee. I am a third-year student from HE20,
which taking course of International and Offshore Banking. My hometown is Kuala
Lumpur. Based on the video that I have watched; I am required to respond on my
thought regarding the topic "which student are you". I think I will be the type of ‘brand
new year’ student. I am the student who face many challenges and failures in my
school life. Especially during semester one that I am just fresh entered this university.
I was facing the pressure of many of the assignments, quizzes, and exams at the
same time, but I am still no motivation and study late at that time. The results that
came out was totally worst and I felt disappointed to myself. Then started the next
semester, I was putting more effort and spent more time to my studies. I am strongly
believed that it will not too late when I am concentrating and well prepare to achieve
the goals that I aimed it. Now for the new semester, I hope that I can get a good
result and accomplish my targets. Education is very important to changing our life. I
think that is all from me, thank you.

Elaborate on one activity which you think you would adopt to improve
workplace communication.
Effective communication in the workplace is essential to developing strong
relationships and accomplishing important tasks. Face to face communication is the
activity that I would adopt to improve the workplace communication. When we are
face to face, we can easily share our thoughts and respond to people’s reaction.
Face to face interaction lead to the stronger working relationships and connections.
Meeting in person helps employees feel valued and gives them an opportunity to
contribute to business performance and communication input. We can gather the
feedbacks or issues that need to solve by the face to face meeting with a clear vision
and mindset. Problem solving is better done when face to face meeting, because
everyone can provide solutions and discuss together. People are more engaged and
more collaborative in face-to-face settings. Besides that, it will become the chance to
build relationships between leaders and employees, establishes shared experience
that can enhance future communication. Moreover, leaders need to build employee
trust to be effective. Face-to-face interaction allows leaders to share strategy, explain
it clearly, and answer questions honestly.  Face to face communication can be a very
valuable tool for internal communications in the workplace. It can be improving
workplace communication when having the face to face meeting at least once per
week.

Why do you think it is important to understand the various cultural

differences? Relate your answers to your experience and examples, in one
short paragraph.
I think that the various cultural differences are important because as our country
Malaysia consist of different cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. When we are learning
about other cultures helps us understand different perspectives within the world in
which we live. It helps dispel negative stereotypes and personal biases about
different groups. Furthermore, cultural diversity allows us to identify and respect
"ways of being" which are not necessarily for our own. We could create bridges
across cultures for trust, respect and understanding. For example, we must aware
and respect the religion of our Malay friend that we just can share “halal” foods that
meaning permissible for Muslims. Besides that, when we offer something to them, we
must make sure that we are using with the right hand only or both hands. In my own
experience, I will avoid eating any non-halal food when I stay together with Malay
housemates in the hostel. It can show a sign of respect of their culture and religion.
Lastly, when we respect others culture, other people will respect our culture too. This
can lead to a harmonious and peaceful country.

When you hear the word “diversity,” what thoughts, feelings, words, and
images come to mind? 
- Where do you think these ideas come from? 
- How do these ideas affect our communication with people from other
cultures and co-cultures?
When I hear the word “diversity,” I will think about the cultural diversity, people from
different cultures, different from each other in their backgrounds, in their manner of
dressing, in what they eat, in how they talk. I think that these ideas come from people
whose thoughts, opinions, perceptions, ideals, histories, perspectives, and actions
different from our own. An efficient communication approach starts with the
understanding that the message sender and the message recipient are from distinct
cultures and contexts. It is perhaps most important for individuals to know that a
basic awareness of cultural diversity is the key to successful cross-cultural
communication without going into cultures and sub-cultures. We would have to learn
how to communicate better with people and communities whose first language, or
language of preference, does not match to our own.

The four stages in planning business messages: Analysing the situation,

Gathering the important information, Selecting the best channel and medium
for your message situations and Organizing the information. Watch this video
and share/explain one stage of the planning business message, citing one
example that you have experienced. Limit your answer to 3-5 lines.
Organize the information need to complete with few steps, define our main ides, limit
our scope, choose a direct or an indirect approach and outline our content. Firstly, we
need to determine out the main ideas or clear vision and mission that we need to
proceed with it. Besides that, we need to figure out the length and the level of details
of information before we choose the method to approach others. I remember that
from the last semester that the subject for entrepreneurship, our group need to
present our business to our supervisor, at that time I have learnt that to organize all
the information that we discuss together and present through slide within the time
given.

In this short video, Gregg Lindberg shared examples of negative words that
can leave a "bad taste in readers mouth".  In 3 - 5 lines, share your thoughts
/experience related to this. 
Negative words could have long-lasting bad outcomes towards a person’s feelings
and slowly become negative minded. A person that uttering words, which are hurtful
or harsh will create conflicts, hurts someone feelings or cause the person being
boycott by everyone. Verbal bullying can affect someone in various emotional and
psychological ways, including: depression, self-harm and in extreme cases, teen
suicide. Thus, negative words have a tremendous influence to degrade and demean
the victim in order to make the aggressor appear dominant and powerful. I think that
everyone must try to speak in a manner which does not break people’s hearts or
binds vengeance and conflict.

Watch the video 'A lesson in good and bad business writing' above. In this
video, Mike Consol talks about clarity in business writing. Summarize in 2-
3 lines the lessons that Mike mentioned in this video. 
Based on the video from Mike Consol, a good business writing should be
straightforward, relevant, understandable, and clearly defined the purpose or
information to the customers. Excessive wording, jargon, or extraneous information
should be avoiding writing in any type of business writing because this will let the
customers easily get confuse. Good business writing is important because it will
provide credibility and attract more customers to the business.

1] the meaning of paraphrasing  

2] its significance to writing reports and proposals 
3] your experience in "paraphrasing"
The meaning of paraphrasing is using different words to express something written
or said, either in a sarcastic way or in a simplified and shorter form that clarifies the
original meaning.
Paraphrasing means converting the ideas presented from a particular part of a
source in a simplified form. It can demonstrate our understanding of key concepts,
ideas and theories in the writing reports and proposals. Paraphrasing can also be
used as evidence to validate our points and explain claims.
When I am doing my assignments, usually need us to paraphrase the key points and
main ideas after read through the entire text. I will summarize all the data in my
own words and the main idea that need to discuss. Then, I will paraphrasing
important supporting point that come up in the essay.

Do you think Wiki information or materials are reliable? Why? Why not? Share
your thoughts.
Wikipedia delivers millions of posts to Internet users on a vast variety of subjects,
which typically places first among search engines. In my opinion, I think that the
information or materials from Wikipedia is not reliable. It is because Wikipedia can
be updated or edited by anybody. This indicates that vandalism, a work in progress,
or just plain incorrect may be whatever details it holds at any given moment. Since,
Wikipedia is unable to document thousands of edits made on a regular basis, any of
those edits may include vandalism or may simply be erroneous and stay unnoticed.
Many colleges and universities have a policy that forbids students from using
Wikipedia as their source for doing research and assignments. It is benefits for us to
use Wikipedia as a guidelines, but we still have to find and do research from the
website or journals that accuracy and relevant.