ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Academic and Personal Development

Academic and Personal Development

Introduction

There are a number of ways through which communication can be done. These include verbal communication, non-verbal communication, electronic communication and written communication. In verbal communication, words are used in order to convey a message, while use of physical gestures as well as body language is made in non-verbal communication. In written communication, as the name suggests, writing is involved. Electronic communication is considered as a modern way of communication that uses electronics and sophisticated technology (Pita & Pedro, 2012, pp.41-50).

In the examples that are provided, the first one is a letter, i.e. written communication, whereas the second one is an email that falls under the category of electronic communication. In case of the letter, the sender receiver relationship is that of a person who can be an account holder of the bank in the future and the bank itself. The context of the letter is that the person is requesting the bank to get his bank account opened in the bank. The second example is an email and the relationship between the sender and the receiver is that of a customer and a vendor. The email is sent by the vendor as an apology for not delivering the work on time as was required by the customer.

Discussion As discussed above, there are a number of ways for doing business communication. Different types are used in different situations depending upon the requirement. However a number of barriers are also associated with different types of communication, including written communication.

The most common barriers that are faced in case of written communication such as letter and email are grammatical and spelling errors, use of text that is irrelevant to text, maintenance of meaning that is intended to be communicated, language barrier and formatting (Greenwald, 2010, pp. 17-25). If the written communication contains grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, then this not only leaves a bad impression but also projects that the person who has written the message is uneducated. It is therefore highly recommended that the written work should be proofread for such errors. Another barrier to written communication is that usually written messages contain a lot of matter that is irrelevant to the topic and this may result in creating confusion in the mind of the reader or the receiver of the message. In addition to this, another barrier one has to face in case of written communication is to maintain the real meaning of the message as intended by the sender. It may happen that the sender intends something, while what is written by him/her conveys a totally different meaning to the receiver. Such barriers, in case of business communication can result in some serious consequences.

If the written communication is done without using a common language, i.e. different languages from the sender and the receiver, then the effectiveness of such communication reduces to quite a significant extent. Formatting is given significant importance as far as written communication is ...