1. Communicating in Your Life
Chapter 1 – 1.3
Communicating in Your Life
Business Communications

2. Importance of Reading
Because there is so much information reading is very important.

3. Reading related to your career
Finding a job
Staying informed
Following procedures
Handling transactions
Providing customer service
Making decisions and solving problems

4. Making decisions and solving problems
Read to understand material from several sources on a topic and make recommendations as requested by your manager.
Read several accounts of how a product failed to perform properly to find the underlying cause of the problem.
Read research reports and market forecasts to help decide whether to produce a new product.
Read employee evaluations and manager comments to select a person for promotion.
Read information on employee benefits such as health care plans to help you choose appropriate options.

5. Types of reading Skimming Scanning Careful reading
Looking over material quickly to locate specific data
Scanning
An attempt to get a basic understanding of the important points of material you are going to read
Looking at main headings, subheadings, first line of each paragraph, lists, figures
Careful reading
Used when trying to understand and remember material

6. Improving reading speed and comprehension
Average reading speed is wpm
Ways to improve reading speed –
Select a location conducive to reading
Scan items – get an overview of information
Use a dictionary
Learn to read in groups of words
Find the main idea in every paragraph
Recognize order of events
Take notes or highlight information