Reflective essay on business communication: goodwill, persuasion, and employment

¶ … admit that I was not confident in my written communication skills. I felt that written communication lacked some of the emotion of verbal communication, and that even the emoticons used in casual written communication could be misconstrued. Therefore, I feel like having the exposure to different types of business writing and the standards and norms associated with them has been helpful. For example, I had no idea how to write a negative letter without jeopardizing an existing business relationship. When I came to understand that my purpose, "when sending a negative message, [was] (ironically) not to give bad news but to create goodwill around the bad news," I realized that business communication was substantively different from personal communication (Stubbs, 2009).

I think that the work that I did in class shows improvement over the course, and that was my goal in the class. It is difficult for me to look back and find ways that I could have improved my performance in the course, not because I feel as if my work was perfect, but because I consistently made my best efforts with the knowledge that I had at the time. Obviously, with more learning and more practice, I could improve on those efforts at this point in time. However, I do not look at that as a negative; the class would have been without value to me if I entered it with the same proficiency I have as I leave it.

I felt comfortable with most of the material presented in the coursework, and I do not feel as if I have any serious lingering questions about any of the topics. However, I do wonder how important the persuasive memo is in a modern business context. I do not know anyone who routinely uses persuasive memos in a business context, despite the fact that they are a good way to present facts and a position argument in a single location (Ashley, 2012). That is not to suggest that they do not use persuasive writing, but the memo seems to be falling out of favor. I do not know if this is a misperception on my part, or if, perhaps, the course should focus on the persuasive use of e-mail and social media. I do understand that many of the elements of the persuasive memo could be incorporated into these other forms of communication.

I do not know that I have a way of quantitatively measuring the future impact of this course, but qualitatively, I believe that my ability to obtain and retain employment and to manage a satisfactory job performance will substantially depend upon my written communication skills. I believe that if I am beginning to question my writing skills, I will be less hesitant to seek expert advice. Moreover, I know that I no longer take advice as negative criticism, which may be this course's greatest contribution to my writing. Therefore, utilizing third parties to assess my writing and suggest improvements is one way that I will ensure continued growth and learning.