120 BUS

equivocality

A state of having multiple meanings or interpretations, leading to uncertainty or ambiguity.

Professional Skills

The abilities to apply knowledge and expertise effectively in a business environment.

Communication

The active process of sending, receiving, and exchanging information, ideas, thoughts, and emotions between a sender and a receiver.

Sender

An individual, group, or organization that originates and transmits a message.

Receiver

The intended listener, reader, or observer who gets the message and decodes it into meaningful understanding.

Meaning

The intentional sharing of information, ideas, and messages between people inside and outside a company to achieve specific organizational goals.

Encoding

The process where a sender turns an abstract thought, idea, or intention into a communicable message using words, symbols, body language, or formatting.

Channel

The medium or method used to send a message from a sender to a receiver.

noise

Any interference, distraction, or barrier that disrupts, distorts, or blocks the clear transmission and understanding of a message between a sender and a receiver.

decoding

The active cognitive process where a receiver interprets and translates a sender's encoded message—such as words, tone, or body language—back into meaningful thoughts and understanding.

feedback

The receiver's verbal, written, or non-verbal reaction that completes the communication loop and confirms whether a message was understood.

Verbal Communication

The sharing of information, ideas, and messages through the use of spoken or written words.

Nonverbal Communication

The process of sending and receiving messages without using spoken or written words, relying instead on physical cues, posture, facial expressions, tone, and space.

Active Listening

The conscious, fully focused practice of hearing, observing, and deeply understanding not just the words spoken, but also the tone, body language, and intent behind them.

Speech-Thought Differential

The significant difference between the rate at which an average person speaks and the speed at which the human brain can process thoughts.

Empathy

The ability to recognize, understand, and validate the emotions, thoughts, and perspectives of colleagues, clients, and stakeholders during professional interactions.

Facts

An objective, verifiable piece of information or data that can be proven true through evidence, observation, or measurement.

Opinions

A subjective view, judgment, or belief that is not fully based on absolute proof or objective facts.

Purposeful

Crafting every message with a clear intent, specific goal, and alignment with the organization’s core values or mission, rather than just exchanging information.

Economical

Framing a message around how resources, costs, and value are allocated to maximize financial efficiency and utility.

Audience Centered

The practice of shaping a message around the listener's needs, prior knowledge, goals, and context rather than focusing strictly on the sender's own agenda or internal process.

Prewriting

The initial planning, researching, and organizing stage that takes place before drafting any professional message, email, report, or proposal. (25% of 3×3 writing process)

Drafting

The active stage of writing where you turn your research, outlines, and goals into a complete, structured first version of a professional document (25% of 3×3 writing process).

Revising

The big-picture process of rearranging, adding, cutting, or fine-tuning a draft so that the message matches the writer's goal and the audience's needs (50% of 3×3 writing process).

Analyzing

Breaking down a message, document, or dataset into smaller parts to see how the information is built and what it truly means.

Anticipating

Predicting how your audience will react to your message before you send or present it.

Adapting

Changing your message's tone, content, style, and delivery method to match your audience's specific needs, expectations, and background.

Researching

The systematic process of gathering, evaluating, and interpreting data to find the information needed to answer a specific question, solve a workplace problem, or support a message.

Organizing

The management function of arranging tasks, people, and resources into a structured framework to achieve company goals efficiently.

Editing

The process of reviewing, refining, and restructuring a draft to improve its clarity, professional tone, and accuracy before sharing it with an audience.

Proofreading

The final review of a completed document to find and fix surface-level errors before it is shared with colleagues, clients, or the public.

Evaluating

The systematic process of assessing the merit, value, and effectiveness of a message, campaign, or communication strategy.

3×3 Writing Process

A structured, three-stage framework that breaks down the task of writing into three main phases.

Inform, persuade

When we write messages in general, they often have both _____ and _____ purposes

Informal Messages

Casual, unstructured exchanges of information that happen outside of official company channels and organizational hierarchies.

Persuasive Messages

A strategic form of communication designed to influence an audience’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or actions toward a desired professional outcome.

Primary audience

The main, intended group of people who receive a message directly, possess the power to make decisions, and must take action based on the information provided.

Secondary audience

Individuals or groups who are not the direct target or main decision-makers for a message, but who may still read, be influenced by, or indirectly react to it.

Richness

The extent to which a channel (medium) recreates or represents all the information available in the original message.

Positive Language

Telling someone what is and what can be done.

Negative Language

Telling someone what is not and can’t be done.

Jargon

Technical or specialized terms within a field.

Academic-oriented Research

A rigid and structured manner of collecting information about a topic.

Basic Research

Where you want to learn more about some specific phenomenon to extend knowledge about it.

Applied Research

Where you want to improve the quality of how a particular field is practiced.

Research Problem Statement

Labels a clear problem in need of investigation and identifies the “gap” in the knowledge base or existing academic literature about this problem.

Research Question

Reflect the researcher’s thinking on the most significant part of the research problem that needs to be studied.

Conceptual (or theoretical) framework

A network of concepts, theories, and alternative explanations that collectively inform a research topic.

Business-Oriented Research

A less rigid and less structured manner of collecting information about a topic.

Informal Research

Involves taking a flexible and unstructured approach towards identifying, reviewing, and including information sources in a business message.

Formal Research

Involves using a more structured approach towards identifying, reviewing, and including documented information sources in a business message.

Primary Data

First hand experience

Secondary Data

Reading about what others have experienced and observed and written about.

Direct Strategy

Where the main point (or purpose) of the message comes first followed by detail, explanation, etc. (Frontloading)

Indirect Strategy

Where the details, explanation, and evidence are presented before the main point (or purpose) of the message.

Simple Sentence

A sentence that contains one complete thought (independent clause) with a subject and a predicate verb.

Complex Sentence

Contains a complete thought (independent clause) and a thought that cannot stand by itself (dependent clause).

Compound Sentence

Contains two complete but related thoughts by either a A conjunction, semicolon, or conjunctive adverb.

Compound-Complex Sentence

Contains at least two independent clauses and one dependent clause.

Fragment

A broken-off part of a complex sentence 

Run-on sentence

occurs when two independent clauses are not joined with either a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.

comma slice

Occurs when a writer joins (splices together) two independent clauses with just a comma.

Mechanical Devices

Physical, non-electronic tools and machinery with moving parts used to record, produce, copy, or transmit messages and documentation in an office or commercial setting.

Active Voice

The subject (or actor) performs the action.

Passive Voice

The subject (or actor) receives the action.

Parallelism

Involves writing sentences so that their parts are balanced or parallel.

Dangling Modifier

When the word or phrase the modifier describes is missing from the sentence.

Misplaced Modifier

Occurs when the word of phrase the modifier describes  is not close enough to be clear.

Paragraph

A groups of sentences about one idea.

Topic Sentence

Expresses the primary idea of the paragraph.

Supporting Sentence

Illustrate, explain, or strengthen the primary idea stated in the topic sentence.

Coherent

When ideas stick together, and one idea leads logically to the next.

Dovetailed

When an idea at the end of one sentence connects with an idea at the beginning of the sentence.

Transitional Expression

A signal that a train of thought is moving forward, being developed, possibly detouring, or ending.

Concise

To express much in brief form. Looking for shorter ways to say what you mean.

Long Lead-in

Unnecessary introductory words at the beginning of a sentence.

unnecessary fillers

Refers to how in many sentences, the expressions there is/are and it is/was.

Redundancies

Expressions that repeat meaning or include unnecessary words.

microblogging

The posting of short messages on social media sites.

Trite Expressions

Overused phrases that have lost their vigor.

Cliche

Expressions that have become exhausted by overuse.

Slang

Composed of informal words with arbitrary and extravagantly changed meanings.

Buzzwords

Technical expressions that have become fashionable.

Buried verb

Verbs that are needlessly converted to wordy noun expressions.

Exuberance

Involves using certain words to show over-the-top intensity or enthusiasm in a sentence.

Margin

The part of a page left blank around the body of a printed text (1-1.5 inches)

Justified Margin

Adjust the letter and word spacing so that lines are aligned at both the left and right margins.

Ragged Right Margin

Leaves the text at the right margin uneven (or unjustified).

Serif Typefaces

Typefaces that have small features at the ends of strokes.

Sans Serif Typefaces

Typefaces that have clean characters.

Font

A specific style within a typeface family.

Font Styles

Different types of typefaces that help to bring attention to important points and terms in a message.

Skim Value

When a reader can quickly grasp its main points, core purpose, and action items without reading every single word.

Headings

Used to highlight main point of a message and improve readability.