I.

COMMUNICATION

Types of communication:

- Formal Types of Communication Skills

- Informal Communication

- Oral Communication (Face-to-face)

- Oral Communication (Distance)

- Written Communication

- Non-verbal Types of communication

Types of Business Writing

- Formal Style in Writing

- Conversational Style in Writing

- Slang Style in Writing

- Emojis in Professional Writing

Six-C writing

- Clarity

- Concise

- Coherent

- Correctness

- Courteous

- Convincing

II. THE SENTENCES STRUCTURE AND RELATIVE CLAUSES

Sentence Structure

Simple sentence = subject + verb

Compound sentence = simple sentence + simple sentence

Complex sentence = simple/independent clause + dependant clause/s

Helpful tips

• Write simple and clearly

• Use a variety of sentence beginnings

• Write as you would speak

• Don’t drop words

Relative clauses:

• The relative clauses or so-called adjective clause is built with a relative pronoun or adverb, a
subject, and a verb.

• Give additional information and can combine clauses without repeating information.

• Refer to a whole sentence or a noun

• Relative clauses can´t stand alone

• Defining relative clauses give the sentence information that is important for the content of
the sentence

• non-defining relative clauses give additional information that could be left out.

• Non-defining relative clauses get separated by a comma from the main clause, essential
relative clauses not.

Relative Pronouns:

• Relative pronouns are pronouns that introduces relative clauses and relate to the word that
the relative clause modifies.

• Can be used as a subject or an object in relative clauses

• Relative pronouns are who, whom, whose, which and that.

• Can be left out in informal styles (only defining relative clauses)

III. VERBAL/ NOMINAL FORMS & ACTIVE/ PASSIVE VOICE

VERBAL FORMS:
What is a verbal?

- Verbal = a word derived from a verb that functions in a sentence as a noun, adjective or adverb

Infinitives:

- A verbal consisting of ‘to’ + a verb in its simplest ‘stem’ form

Participles:

- A verbal that is used as an adjective and often ends in -ing or -ed

- Present participle (-ing): The crying baby had a wet diaper.

- past participle (-ed; -en; -d; -t;-n; --ne): Shaken, we all walked away from the wrecked car.

- Punctuation depends on the position of the participle in the sentence

Gerunds:

- A verbal that ends in -ing and functions as a noun

- Occupies some positions in the sentence a noun would do

Nominal Forms :

- Nominalizations are nouns that refer to a process

- they often end in –ation/-tion/-ition

- It’s not using nouns; it’s overusing nouns that causes problems

- Solution: Verbs instead of nouns

- Example: The legalization of (noun)→ to legalize (verb)

Reasons to avoid Nominalization:

- creating an extra noun in your sentence = extra article and preposition to support it

- Adding an extra “of“ or “the“ will get in the way of your original message

IV. TENSES AND REPORTED SPEECH

General Information – Reported Speech

• Reported speech tells you what someone has said

• It is introduced with phrases like:

O To assure, to say, to believe, etc.

Explanation – Reported Speech

1. Determine type of sentence: Statement, Question, Demand

2. Tense of introductory sentence: Presence or Past
3. Change of pronouns: you, he, she, it
4. Backshift if needed
5. Change information of location and time: Yesterday -> The day before

V. PUNCTUATION, CAPITAL LETTERS AND APOSTROPHES

Capitalize:

pronoun “I”, the first word of a sentence, names, and other proper nouns, the first word of a quote
when the quote is a complete sentence, discoveries/diseases named after someone, days, months,
and holidays, most words in titles, specific periods, eras, and historical events that have proper
names, position titles, people’s titles only when they appear before the name, most names related to
scholastic endeavors, names of specific departments within a.

DO NOT capitalize:

Common nouns, seasons, words after a colon, articles, conjunctions, and prepositions, roles, the first
word of partial quotes, not all full forms that have capitalized acronyms, general courses of study,
general department names

COMMAS

1. Put a comma between different subjects and different actions:

After we loaded the packages, the truck drove away.

2. Put a comma between two sentences joined by “and,” “but,” or “or”:

The vendor will do for now, but we need for to find a more reliable one soon.

3. Commas before and after information you have inserted in the middle of the sentence:

We did find, to our surprise, that none of the switches had been turned on.

4. Put a comma between the describing words to show that they each refer to the word
following, not to each other:

He was a confident, upbeat, articulate candidate.

 1. The same subject and different actions, - no comma:

They were very friendly and invited us to their villa in Portugal.

2. We don’t use commas to mark defining clauses:

Barcelona was the Spanish city that was selected for the Olympic games.

Apostrophes

Singular possession(‘+s):

Woman’s ha

Plural possession(s+’):

Two actresses’ roles

Singular compound noun:

My mother-in-law’s hat

Two people possess the same item:

Cesar and Maribel’s home is constructed of redwood

Contractions:

Doesn’t, can’t, it’s

Time/money=possessive adj.:

My two cents’ worth

VI. FORMAL AND INFORMAL VOCABULARY , ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

Formal Vocabulary

A formal vocabulary is polite, strictly correct with regard to grammar, style and choice of words.

It has:

- a more complex structure

- an objective approach

- use of full words rather than constructions

- writing in the third person.

Informal Vocabulary
Informal, adj. Without ceremony or formality; relaxed and friendly; said of language, clothes, etc:
suitable for and used in relaxed, everyday situations.

- Colloquial language and terms

- Personal tone

- Simple structure and approach

- Contractions and abbreviations within the text

- Empathy and emotions

The writing style should be: Avoid:

- Concise - Excessive Wording

- Relevant - Jargon

- Understandable - Extraneous information

- Passive voice

Abbreviations

 Only use abbreviations yourself if your readers will recognize and understand them.

 Don’t use too many abbreviations, they can make a sentence hard to read.

 It’s advisable to clarify an uncommon abbreviation by writing it out on the first.

Acronyms

What are they?

Acronyms are pronounceable words created by uniting the first parts of a series of another words.

When do we use them?

We use acronyms when we want to convey certain thought in a fast way or when we have a

short /limited time for expressing an idea and we want to be efficient with our wording.

Are acronyms the same as abbreviations or initialisms?

They are not the same.

Abbreviation: they are made by shortening a word without creating a new pronounceable word in
the process.

Initialism: they are formed by putting together the initial letter of different words. Usually they are
written in capital letters and every letter is pronounced separately.
 VII. FORMATTING TECHNIQUES, PLAGIARISM AND HELPFUL APPLICATIONS

Formatting Techniques

Format of basic letter memo/email:

• Paragraphs not indented

• Line Spacing of 1 or 1.15 in the paragraph

• Line Spacing of 2 in between paragraphs

• Left Margin: Justified/aligned

• Right Margin: Ragged or straight line

• Font size of 10 or 12

Format of memo/email

Deductive – ideas are presented in a decrease order of importance

Inductive – ideas are presented in an increase order of importance

Business Letter format

• Blocked

• Modified Block

• Semi-blocked

How to make it more engaging to the reader:

• Use of white space

• Lists

• Headings

• Font

Plagiarism

Citation:

1. Provide the authors name (e.g. “J.K. Rowling writes”)

2. Provide page number
3. Provide full bibliographic information in the end
4. Watch out for citation style (MLA / APA)
5. Better ask your lecturer if you´re unsure

Paraphrasing:
• The meaning is important, not the words of the author (See the bigger picture)
• Change the word order / sentence structure
• No quotation marks

Summary
In school we´ve been taught ¼ of the original text
No quotation marks
Neutral → not your own opinion

Useful applications
• Interactive tools, structured lessons, business idioms, news, …
• Provide the right set of tools to help you develop your business skills
• Can be used anytime, anywhere

Tips for writing

• Try to do it badly at first
• Editing is crucial
• Do not be afraid of mistakes!
• Improve your English writing with technology