Articles>Reviews>Business Communication

English for the Energy Industries: Oil, Gas, and Petrochemicals

Not only people preparing to work in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries, but also students of industrial chemistry and chemical engineering can immensely benefit from the material provided in this coursebook and supplementary CDs.

Successful Writing At Work: Concise Edition

Philip Kolin's purpose in writing Successful Writing at Work: Concise Edition is to introduce professional and business writing to undergraduate students who probably will not be taking other business writing courses. Kolin forgoes theory and provides ample exercises and examples. The concise edition, at 344 pages (10 chapters) and US$55, is 412 pages shorter and US$23 less than the full version, Successful Writing at Work (Kolin, 2006). While the book includes many of the important topics of the full version (such as discrete chapters devoted to letter writing, job applications, and writing procedures), the savings may not justify the loss of content and depth.

CEO-Speak: The Language of Corporate Leadership

The Language of Corporate Leadership is a study of the written discourse of CEOs that is found in annual reports, corporate Web sites, congressional testimonies, and employee newsletters. The book contains 10 case studies of CEOs' writings from past and present megacorporations, including Enron, General Electric, Microsoft, Disney, and AOL. The organizations covered in the book represent both new and old economies and include two Canadian companies and a public-sector company. The authors, Joel Amernic and Russell Craig, are accounting and business professors and appropriately focus on accounting and financial reporting aspects of CEOs' written discourse.

Communication Skills for the Processing of Words, 5th Edition

This text aims to prepare students for entry-level jobs and foster their career progress after they enter the workplace. The focus of this book is not as broad as the typical introductory text on business communication. However, this book could be the right choice for an advanced business writing course in a high school or an introductory business writing course in a college, university, or technical school. This book might also work well as a supplement in a postsecondary business communication course for use by students who either have not completed a 1st-year composition course or who have completed that course without mastering grammar, mechanics, and style. This textbook includes 18 units: 8 discuss specific types of punctuation (e.g., commas and colons); 7 cover usage and mechanics (e.g., capitalization and numbers); and 3 cover grammar (e.g., subject and verb agreement).

Internet-Based Workplace Communications: Industry and Academic Applications

Internet-Based Workplace Communications: Industry and Academic Applications, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Pavel Zemliansky, is a collection of essays that aims to bridge a gap between academic and industry understandings of the role of digital technologies in business and technical communication. The essays consider the implications of new online communication technologies for classroom and workplace practices. Although the essays are geared toward an academic audience and do not offer a comprehensive look at Internet-based workplace practices, the collection can serve as a starting point for educators who would like to discuss in their technical communication courses the implications of integrating Internet technologies into contemporary communication practices.

Writing in the Business Professions

Writing in the Business Professions should interest teachers of advanced composition. I encourage them to peruse the volume for themselves since I can’t analyze its contents at length here. I do, however, feel that I need to warn potential readers about several things that perplexed me when I read the book especially since this book may help determine the future of business communication instruction in the 1990s.