Lesson 5 β Activity 4: Signs, E-mails, and Faxes
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Lesson 5 β Activity 4: Signs, E-mails, and Faxes
In many stores, offices, and other work environments, messages are communicated by signs and posters. This can be a very helpful way for people to get information quickly and easily.
Signs or posters cannot have a lot of information on them. For this reason, if we are designing these, we must make sure that our purpose is clear and that all of the important information we need is included.
To communicate using signs or posters, we also need to think about our audience.
A child looking for a public washroom will know which one to use if there is a picture on the door. If the child is too young to read, the words "Men" or "Women" on the door will not be very helpful.
Signs or posters cannot have a lot of information on them. For this reason, if we are designing these, we must make sure that our purpose is clear and that all of the important information we need is included.
To communicate using signs or posters, we also need to think about our audience.
- If our audience is young children, we will need to communicate with simple pictures rather than words.
A child looking for a public washroom will know which one to use if there is a picture on the door. If the child is too young to read, the words "Men" or "Women" on the door will not be very helpful.
- If you are in the tourist business, signs may be ways to overcome difficulties in language.
All the elements of communication that you have learned about previously also affect messages sent by e-mail or fax. Although these are very common ways to communicate in many workplaces, we still need to ensure that the language we use is appropriate,
especially when the receiver is someone we do not know very well.
Consider these suggestions for communicating by e-mail and fax:
Consider these suggestions for communicating by e-mail and fax:
- Keep the audience in mind. With e-mail and faxes, the privacy we might have in a conversation or even a letter may not be protected. E-mails can be easily forwarded to audiences we might not have had in mind when sending our original message. Faxes may be picked up by someone other than the intended recipient. For these reasons, a message sent by e-mail or fax should not contain information or thoughts we do not want shared with the people who might see the message.
- Think about the purpose of the message. E-mails and fax cover sheets should be brief and to the point.
- Try to maintain a respectful tone in your writing. Remember that we can make our words sound very different when we change the tone of our voice or the expression on our face, but these differences do not come through on paper.
- We need to plan and organize our message just as we do when using any other method of communication; we need a main point with support and a conclusion.