Business & Professional Communication (CMST 280)

Format/Modality: 16-week, Online (Asynchronous); Formerly face-to-face, hybrid, and mixed delivery.

Digital Technology: D2L

Instructional Design: video lectures, reading, case study, role play, gamification, quizzes and exams, presentation [sample outline]

As described in the course catalog:
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[COM 280 is] a survey of communication theory pertaining to business and professional settings. Provides practice applicable to interviews, conference briefings, and presentation techniques. Prerequisite: CMST 101

Additional detail:

You spend time speaking formally and listening in this course; however, the focus of this course will primarily emphasize crafting, delivering, and evaluating written professional communications. There are four reasons for this emphasis on writing: click here to read reasons.

If the primary focus of this course is to improve writing, an ancillary emphasis is to introduce you to useful software and technology that can improve and enhance your professional communications. You will develop, for example, some technical skills required to produce, format, and distribute messages—both written and oral—through social media outlets.

This textbook is available in an alternative, free version for SIU students taking this course. See D2L.

Instructors or others interested in adopting this book, please go to communucation.work for more information.

With the purchase of this book, you receive access to the following resources that we’ll be using in this course:

• Premium resources on www.communication.work.
• ​Access to Word and Writing tutorials
• Resume template
• +More

Additional required readings will be made available on Desire2Learn.

• Use emotional intelligence to navigate professional situations
• Demonstrate improved interpersonal communication competence
• Effectively write business prose and format business documents
• Search for positions and develop application materials
• Deliver effective presentation techniques

By the end of this course, learners should be able to

1. demonstrate the application of  communication competence and emotional intelligence through a case study analysis;
2. apply rhetorical theory and rhetorical analysis to the preparation and evaluation of business and professional communications;
3. use the five canons of rhetoric to construct, distribute, and evaluate oral and written business artifacts;
4. understand and demonstrate the use of basic and advanced writing techniques that today’s business and social environments demand, including anticipating audience interpretations;
5. write effective concise, extensive, and electronic business messages;
   proofread and copyedit written rhetorical artifacts;
6. evaluate oral and written business correspondence;
   successfully engage in the employment process as a job candidate; and,
7. continue developing effective professional communication skills including, but not limited to, interviewing, leadership, conflict negotiation, argumentation, and writing skills