Page 359 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

Model Question Papers | 347

• Assume responsibility for your feelings and opinions, don’t hide behind the ‘it’ or the
editorial ‘we’.
• Avoid stating personal opinions as facts and avoid the over-generalizations some-
times implied by forms of the verb ‘to be’, like ‘are’, ‘is’, ‘am’, and so on.
• Clearly, giving an ‘I’ statement is more constructive than giving an order, an accusa-
tion, a moral judgment, and so on. However, this is not an easy concept to grasp. The
pronoun ‘you’ is used all the time, many uses are not bad. Try to become aware of the
undesirable ways you use ‘you.’

10. Writing is a special communication skill. Let us understand the unique qualities of
writing as a communication skill.
i. Let us begin with the division academia generally prefers. While studying the B.Ed.,
we have already learnt that of all the four LSRW skills, writing (of course, in addition
to speaking) is an active skill of communication. In other words, when we communi-
cate through writing, we are an agent or an initiator of the act of communicating. We
are not mere recipients as in reading.

ii. Reading, the passive counterpart of writing, has, nevertheless, a unique role to play in
refining an encoder’s written message. For effective communication through writing,
the encoder has to be an efficient reader; such reading skills as pre-viewing, skimming
and scanning, and using a library effectively to help a reader. In the final analysis, the
encoder who reads more communicates better through writing.
iii. Now let us look at the communication chain to understand yet another unique quality
of writing. Communication is a process wherein an encoder sends a message to a
decoder. The encoder uses a via media to convey his message. Writing is unusual as a
communication skill because it uses very many different means to communicate this
message. In addition to language, an author can use visuals and graphics—diagrams,
charts, graphs, and tables—to communicate well. Secondary means such as these
enhance the communicative possibilities of writing. We have to remember though
that these effects are often not integral to the conveying of the message. Language is
primarily responsible in conveying the meaning of the written communication. The
content of the message and the style used are much more important than such visual
designing which is often accused of diverting the decoder’s attention. This possible
problem should not conceal the fact that of all the communication skills, writing
alone enjoys such a simultaneous multiplicity of media.
iv. As a communication skill, writing is unusual in yet another way. When an encoder
communicates through writing, his decoder is not physically present. Yet any form
of writing is clearly decoder-oriented. A reader determines the way a writer writes.
While writing a textbook for the pre-primary kids, our content and style would radi-
cally differ from the way we would write while preparing a handbook for management
trainees. The way we would write a memo to our junior colleagues would differ from
the official correspondence we share with the HRD Ministry. In all these instances,

Bhatnagar_Model Question Paper.indd 347 2011-06-24 3:12:36 PM