Hearing and Listening Skills

Hearing vs. Listening

• Hearing is a passive, automatic, and physiological physical process
• Listening is an active, learned skill involving both physical and mental processes, making it more psychological than hearing.
• Listening is an active process of understanding, assessing, and responding using the brain

Types of Listening

• Active listening is for enjoyment, entertainment, and relaxation, it is considered a standard type
• Empathic listening deals with emotions and feelings and requires patience
  • It can be risky because unsolicited feedback on sensitive topics can negatively affect someone
  • Psychiatrists, guidance counselors, and psychologists should perform emphatically
• Listening requires the simultaneous interpretation of verbal and nonverbal cues to provide feedback

Degrees/Levels of Listening

• Repeating involves perceiving, paying attention, remembering, and repeating the speaker's exact words
• Paraphrasing involves perceiving, paying attention, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and constructing the message using similar words
• Reflecting involves constructing the message using one's own words and sentence structure to avoid plagiarism

Analytical/Critical Listening

• Analytical or critical listening is a difficult type that involves evaluation and judgment

Framework of the Listening Process

• Receiving (Hearing): Sensory receptors become active
• Understanding (Learning): Emotional tone is gauged while the brain works
• Remembering (Recalling): This includes emotions
  • Short-term memory should not involve emotion as it will result in forgetting the information quickly
• Evaluating (Judging): The message is comprehended and judged by one's own terms
• Responding (Answering): Feedback is provided, with the listener becoming the speaker and vice versa

Writing as Communication

• Writing is a means of human communication using symbols to represent language
• Writing uses letters, punctuation, and spaces to communicate thoughts and ideas

Technical vs. Creative Writing

• Technical writing is formal, strict with spelling and grammar, and based on facts
• Creative writing is informal and relies more on imagination

Literature

• "Litera" directly translates to letters.
• This extends to transforming letters into words, and words into phrases

Basic Rules in Writing

• Capitalization: The first letter of a sentence and the pronoun "I" should be capitalized
• Other rules: Punctuation, spelling, grammar, and indentation also important
  • Note, business letters follow different formats from standard writing
• Word contractions should be avoided
• Bullet points should be avoided in essays
• One idea should be covered per paragraph
• Use passive rather than active voice

Unity and Coherence

• Unity occurs when all sentences in a paragraph relate to the main idea presented in the topic sentence.
• Paragraph unity is lost when a paragraph drifts away from its purpose by adding irrelevant details
• Coherence is achieved when supporting information is arranged logically and linked with transitions, repeated keywords, and concluding sentences
• A coherent paragraph hangs together, flows smoothly, and has sentences that are logically connected

Techniques or Bridges

• Logical bridges/techniques ensure a flow and clear direction.
  • Chronological order (time), spatial (space), inductive order (specific to general), and deductive order (general to specific)

Verbal Techniques

• Transitional words or phrases and indicators must be used
• References to pronouns that avoid redundancies
• Repetition of keywords should emphasize the main idea
• Parallel structure involves similar ideas and items or words in progressive form
• Emphasis should be used to give importance to ideas.

Technical Writing

• Technical writing is understood by a wide range of audiences
• Report writing is another term for technical writing

Characteristics of Technical Writing

• It focuses on different disciplines and uses science and technology
• Technical vocabulary involves using understandable terms, unlike jargons only understood by experts

Importance of Graphics and Visuals

• Graphics and visual aids assist understanding
• Impartiality and objectivity avoids bias

Complex Writing

• Uses different terminologies for different audiences

Different Purposes of Writing

• Writing can provide information
• Writing can analyze and trigger actions
• Writing can persuade and influence people.

Genres of Professional Writing

• Business letters concern transactions
• Feasibility studies and reports assesses a business' financial capability or a surrounding one
• Technical writing documents include abstracts, technical papers, research papers, articles
• Specifications give detailed information
• Brochures can be pamphlets, leaflets, or booklets
• User guide manuals give detailed information on product or service instructions
• Proposals are plans or changes to solve a problem
• Treaties are formal written documents that provide agreement for peace and alliance
• Contracts are agreements enforceable by law
• Policies are rules and regulations
• Progress/Accomplishment/Narrative Reports and Laborartory Reports provide evidence based reports
• Survey reports provide initial reports.

Professional Correspondence

• Transmittal letters are documents including data, e.g., receipts
• Work emails are under the influence of professionalism
• Purchase orders are quotation letters about prices, but not receipts