Academic Writing and Public Speaking Guide PDF

**Academic Writing** - to express thoughts **Essay** - discusses a topic from a personal viewpoint - to explain or prove a point **Stages** **1. Pre-writing Stage** - **Developing a Concept** - Most difficult stage in writing an essay - Formulate your topic, identify your audien...

**Academic Writing** - to express thoughts **Essay** - discusses a topic from a personal viewpoint - to explain or prove a point **Stages** **1. Pre-writing Stage** - **Developing a Concept** - Most difficult stage in writing an essay - Formulate your topic, identify your audience, and establish your purpose - **Gather Materials** - First resource should be yourself - **Develop a thesis** - The paper's main point - Opinion-based sentence - **Developing Plan** - Could be done in several ways: idea mapping, story boarding, or formal outline. - **Idea mapping** -- graphical or textual technique for visualizing connections between several ideas or pieces of information. Uses lines or curves to its major or minor. - **Story mapping** -- technique where every idea is placed in an index card. - **Formal Outline** -- systematic and logical representation of how the paper will look like. This can be: - **Scratch outline** -- jotting down notes - **Topic outline** -- parts and subparts are arranged according to the importance. - **Sentence outline** -- form of complete sentence that corresponds to the arrangement - **Paragraph outline** -- more formal that sentence outline -- each paragraph contains a topic sentence, supporting details, and concluding sentence. **2. Writing Stage --** serves as guide only - Writing of the first draft - Establish the thesis statement at the start of the paper. - Support your claim with data and information based on research. - Your plan or outline is not an iron clad contact. **Introduction** - Foregrounds your topic and gives a hint on the important points within the essay. - Mention the thesis statement **Body** - Support the thesis - Each paragraphs convey one point and that they all support the thesis **Conclusion** - Serves as a reminder of the main idea of the essay **3. Post-writing Stage** - First draft may be disorganized so rearranging and adding paragraphs, omitting or adding information - All resources should be included in bibliography - Proofread your paper **Public Speaking** - Considered as dreadful and difficult - Process of conveying ideas of sharing opinions and information and inducing understanding to crowd - Human relation -- brought social and public functions **Types of Speeches** **According to Purpose** **1. Expository/Informative speech** - Answers basic questions -- what, how, why - Topics are non-controversial and non-debatable - Purpose -- to help the audience understand and remember the information - Tips in stating specific purpose - Express as declarative sentence - State precisely - Contains only one idea - Includes word that show intent (explain, show, give illustrate, demonstrate) **2. Persuasive Speech** - Aims to convince the audience to do specific actions - Used to sway the audience to change their mind on certain issues - Aims to influence values, ideas, beliefs and attitudes - An opposition of concepts **3. Entertainment Speech** - Aims to amuse the audience by using humor, anecdotes, jokes, and stories relevant to the topic - Gives the audience to enjoy themselves - The message my have message but the message is not the major focus of the story - Include interesting info, personal experience or story of resent trip - Provides interesting diversion **1. Manuscript Reading** - Material is written out word for word - Speaker reads every word from the prepared text - Speaker maintains a conversational tone of voice - Delivery must be closely choreographed - E.g., critical updates to the media, reports at a professional meeting or a political address - Highly formal situations where accuracy is extremely important **2. Memorized Speech** - Prepared for quite time and committed to memory - Delivered from memory -- no notes or paper use - Most difficult and less effective type of speech - E.g., introduction of other speakers, weeding toasts, "thank you" comments or congratulatory remarks. **3. Impromptu Speech** - Delivered w/o any preparation - The speaker talks on the spur of the moment - No advance planning or practice - Tips: - Think for a second about what you are going to say - Keep your points brief and to the point - Take a few seconds between thoughts to compose yourself **3. Extemporary Speech** - With minimal preparation - It is not written out, nor is it committed to memory - Use brief notes or outline as they build up the language during the delivery **1. Welcome Speech** - It expresses pleasure and warm **2. Thanksgiving Speech** - Address to specific individuals for important reason **3. Introduction Speech** - Tells about the guest speaker's qualifications, skills, and outstanding achievements **4. Closing Speech** - Wraps up all the activities towards the realization of the day's objective or the theme of the celebration **5. Acceptance Speech** - Delivered after receiving an award, a promotion, or any kind of recognition **6. Tribute Speech** - Delivered on the occasion of one's birthday - Speech of gratitude to praise a group **7. Commencement Speech** - Aims to express gratitude to the individuals who have contributed to the success of the graduates - It motivates, inspires and encourage **Interview** - One-on-one and face-to-face quick, flexible conversation between two persons - Most purposive of dyad forms - To know one's opinion, attitude, idea, etc. - Interviewer asks questions to obtain information and the interviewee answers the question **Types of Interviews** **1. Fact-finding** - Focuses on receiving information or data for decision making, problem solving and creating good will - Used to get facts known **2. Job Selection** - Used to know and evaluate the qualifications of an applicant **Purposes** **1. Informational Interview** - Aims to supply facts, ideas, data **2. Exploratory Interview** - Aims to exchange ideas, data and facts to explore the problem **3. Performance Appraisal Interview** - Aims to evaluate job performance, placement, training and promotion **4. Counseling Interview** - To change undesirable behavior to improve relationships and performance **5. Grievance Interview** - Aims to settle differences, to improve and remedy problem situation **6. Sales Interview** - Aims to make sale or accept a solution **7. Exit Interview** - Aims to identify reasons for leaving or to create goodwill **Types of Interviews Questions** **1. Open-ended Question** (1 question) - Allows the interviewee to explain, narrate, classify, define, compare, and contrast. **2. Direct Question** (1 question) - Requires very absolute answer - Leads the interviewee to give a very specific data **3. Mirror-type Question** (2 questions) - Form a follow-up question - Restates or rephrases the response to the preceding questions - Aims to check the interviewer's understanding on the interviewee's answer **4. Probing Question** (3 questions) - To dig deeper into the answer of the interviewee **5. Loaded Question** (1 question) - Highly emotional and causes prejudice and stress on the part of the interviewee making it difficult to answer **6. Problem-solving Question** (1 question) - Hypothetical in nature - The interviewer details a problem w/c the interviewee needs to solve - Aims to size up the interviewee's ability to make decisions in a spur of a moment Organizational Communication - Communication flow that an institution or agency follows to ensure accuracy and efficiency in the transmission of messages. - Purpose - To expedite the transfer and reception of instructions and pieces of information - Create goodwill - Ask services - Persuade someone to do something **1. Informal** - A formless communication process, often referred to as a grapevine **2. Formal** - Follows definite protocol of communication exchanges - It can be: - **Upward-directed communication** - Used to inform the administration reactions or information that are essential to formulation of policies - Aims to provide administrators w/ information to determine problem areas, gather information for performance evaluation, identify office management concerns, and know the feelings of the employees - Subordinates to supervisor - **Downward directed** - Supervisor to subordinates - To inform personnel about organizational policies, procedure, feedback, and objectives - **Lateral Communication** - Type of intra-company communication that take place b/n sections, divisions, or departments of the same level - To share information among peers at similar levels **Communication Materials in the Workplace** **Business Letter** - Used to transmit messages inside and outside the organization - To make negotiations and create goodwill **Parts of Business Letter** **1. Letterhead** - Contains the mailing address of the sender - Consists of: NAME, ADDRESS, CONTACT DETAILS OF THE AGENCY - Company logo can be added - Position: at the center, flashes left or right of the paper **2. Date** - Time when the letter was written - Month, day and year must be written - No abbreviations and the use of comma when needed - Witten in American Style (December 4, 2024) - Written in British way (4 December 2024) - Position: at the left margin or flashed with the right starting at few spaces at the center point of the page **3. Inside Address** - Usually, 3-4 lines - Name, position/rank of the addressee, his company's name and address - All lines are blocked at the left margin - Give titles -- Dr., Hon., Rev., Prof., etc. - Write the complete name of the addressee **4. Salutation** - Courtesy greeting - Typed 2 or 3 spaces below the last line of the inside address - Colon ends the salutation line **5. Body** - Reason why the letter is written - Composed of at least 2-3 paragraphs - 1^st^ paragraph states the context of the letter - 2^nd^ paragraph explains the intention of the writer - 3^rd^ paragraph states the closing statement of the writer - Typed in single space and double space in b/n paragraphs **6. Complimentary Close** - First letter is capitalized and punctuated with a comma - Should be consistent with the salutation and the message **7. Signature** - Consists of the name and the position of the writer of the letter typed 3 to 4 line below the complementary close **Forms of Business Letter** **1. Full Block** - Illustrates how quick and easy communications can be to type - All elements are left justified - The paragraphs are not indented - Can be use for all business occasions - Provides crisp, modern look **2. Blocked Style** - Less formal than full block - Elements are left justified except date, the complimentary close and signature that are moved towards the right side and aligned - Used when they have good working relationship **3. Semi-block** - Less formal than full block and slightly formal than blocked format - 1^st^ line of each paragraph is indented - Works well in almost all situations. **Memorandum** - Goes within the organization, that is, from one person or department to another - An inter-office communication - Used to: - Confirm the essential points of a meeting - Channel updates on policies - Give directives - Ask data or support - Notification - Brief reports - Announcements **Parts** **1. Heading** - Consist of: - Subject line -- summary of message - Date -- time w/n memo was written - To -- target reader of the memo - From -- writer of the memo **2. Body** - Provides the details of the memo - Usually short - To inform as it gives out only particular information relating to the purpose of the memo **3. Conclusion** - Short statement that calls for action from the recipients of the memo