Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

In response to the demand for business graduates with good communication skills, many schools are examining ways to enhance and strengthen their com munication programs to ensure students' development of these skills. This paper presents a model for implementing a Communication Across the Cur riculum (CAC) program that is based on an integrated approach to developing students'communication skills. The model is based on the authors'experience as coordinators of the CAC program at their university.

Forpractitioners and teachers, this article reviews the literature on differences in cultural assumptions underlying negotiation between businesspersons in the People's Republic of China and those from the West, particularly the United States. Unless perceived and understood, profound differences in atti tudes, expectations, and unworded messages will frustrate businesspeople's efforts to do business with China, a huge and developing market.

Regarding explanation in negative messages, this article makes two innovative suggestions for presentation in the classroom and in textbooks of business communication: (1) Providing a reasonable explanation is the sender's moral obligation; receiving such explanation is a natural right of the target. (2) Explanation should be consciously generated and presented on two levels: general (macro) and specific (micro). Such presentation has at least two advantages: explanation on the general level ties the message to its wider con text or even with the human condition itself; explanation on the specific level connects it with the target's unique situation.

The two authors created a multimedia intercultural business communication program. Multimedia is an effective instructional tool because of its ability to capture the attention of the learner and offer interactivity so the learner con trols the learning process. An appeal is made to the learner's imagination. Two constraints are the computer requirements to operate it and the length of time required to learn a multimedia software design program. The course content is described and the seven steps in developing the multimedia hypertext are detailed. The authors recommend the process with advice about what charac teristics the authors of multimedia programs need to develop.

With the heavy reliance upon restcmes for securing employment, instructors are called upon both formally and informally to teach résumé design. The pre sent research was conducted in response to the observation that limited empir ical research exists on résumé content. More specifically, the research extends from and compares to a study of a decade ago (Hutchinson, 1984) to detect potential changes in the preferences for résumé content of personnel adminis trators in Fortune 500 organizations. Based upon responses to questionnaires, the present research draws comparisons between the 1984 research and the present survey to enhance the information available to teachers of résumé design.

As colorprinters drop in price, business communicators will have an increas ing ability to use color. Judicious use of color can make documents attractive, professional, and effective. Unfortunately, poorly used color can seriously detractfrom a document. To prevent such problems, this essay introduces busi ness communication instructors to the principles of effectively using color. Among topics discussed are general uses of color, color used with text, spot color, color in oral presentations, and color in résumés.

Business communication students at two midwestern universities were polled on the first day of the 1995 spring term to determine their (1) written com naunication assignment likes Idislikes; (2) oral communication assignment likes/dislikes; (3) experience using e-mail; and (4) attitudes toward written, oral, and e-mail communication. The 144 respondents viewed oral communi cation less positively than they did either written or e-mail communication. Significant differences were found among overall ratings for oral, written, and e-mail communication. In addition, students with prior e-mail experience gave significantly higher ratings to it and to oral communication than did those who had not used e-mail.

Recent articles in Business Communication Quarterly advocate giving oral feedback on business communication assignments and compare such com mentary to written feedback: Little attention has been paid, however, to computer-assisted feedback. This article describes one way to give such word- processed feedback, describes some advantages of this mode over both hand written and audio comments, and identifies some limitations of this method.

Over the years, a number of systems have been developed or adapted for use in grading the work of students in written business communication courses. Although the "perfect" system most likely has not been developed, a number of those currently used fulfill theirgoal of helping students become more profi cientwriters. Some systems undoubtedly fulfill their goal more effectively than others, however. Regardless of which feedback system an instructor uses, he/she needs to be aware of its advantages and disadvantages as well as ways to maximize its effectiveness. This article provides a review of three different systems: written comments, conferences, and peer evaluation.