Question

This part of the assignment will serve to

• demonstrate students’ understanding of the essential components of the writing process and the importance of proper planning when preparing a written document,
• provide students with practice writing and revising of formal and informal business reports using professional writing standards, and
• develop critical thinking and writing skills of students.

Instructions

Review Chapters 7 and 8 of the course textbook. These chapters provide information on the planning, elements and writing of reports. Using the literature review from Part 1 of this assignment, prepare a 1,500-word (double-spaced, 12-point font) report on the chosen topic that includes the following:

1. At least 5 academic sources
2. Answers to the following:
   • What was the catastrophic event?
   • What communication strategy did your chosen company use and did you feel is was an effective approach?
   • What could they have done differently and why? Be sure to substantiate your argument with research.
3. Use APA referencing guidelines for citations and references. Click here to review "APA Style".

Answer 1

1--Catastrophic Events. Any event or force of nature that has catastrophic consequences, such as avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, lightning, tornado, tsunami and volcanic eruption.

This is a strong word for terrible, harmful, devastating things. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis are catastrophic weather events. A depression is catastrophic for the economy. In sports, if the star player is injured, that's catastrophic for the team. If a parent dies, that's catastrophic for a family. Scientists worry that climate change will have a catastrophic effect on the planet. Catastrophic events are severe and horrific. Stubbing your toe isn’t catastrophic: losing your leg in an accident is.

2--

Strategies for effective verbal communication

• Focus on the issue, not the person. ...
• Be genuine rather than manipulative. ...
• Empathize rather than remain detached. ...
• Be flexible towards others. ...
• Value yourself and your own experiences. ...
• Use affirming responses
• .Yes...I feel it was an effective approach.

• Focus on the issue, not the person. Try not to take everything personally, and similarly, express your own needs and opinions in terms of the job at hand. Solve problems rather than attempt to control others. For example, rather than ignoring a student who routinely answers questions in class with inappropriate tangents, speak with the student outside of class about how this might disrupt the class and distract other students.
• Be genuine rather than manipulative. Be yourself, honestly and openly. Be honest with yourself, and focus on working well with the people around you, and acting with integrity.
• Empathize rather than remain detached. Although professional relationships entail some boundaries when it comes to interaction with colleagues, it is important to demonstrate sensitivity, and to really care about the people you work with. If you don’t care about them, it will be difficult for them to care about you when it comes to working together.
• Be flexible towards others. Allow for other points of view, and be open to other ways of doing things. Diversity brings creativity and innovation.
• Value yourself and your own experiences. Be firm about your own rights and needs. Undervaluing yourself encourages others to undervalue you, too. Offer your ideas and expect to be treated well.
• Use affirming responses. Respond to other in ways that acknowledge their experiences. Thank them for their input. Affirm their right to their feelings, even if you disagree. Ask questions, express positive feeling; and provide positive feedback when you can.

3--Developing strategy takes time and resources. It requires the time and commitment of some of the most highly paid and highly experienced people in your organization. So, if your team isn’t willing to invest what is needed, I recommend that you don’t do it. Poor planning is often worse than no planning at all.

There are two parts to referencing: the citations within the text of your paper and the reference list at the end of your paper.

4--

The APA referencing style is an "author-date" style, so the citation in the text consists of the author(s) and the year of publication given wholly or partly in round brackets.

Use only the surname of the author(s) followed by a comma and the year of publication. Include page, chapter or section numbers if you need to be specific, for example if you are quoting, paraphrasing or summarising:

No distinction is made between books, journal articles, internet documents or other formats except for electronic documents that do not provide page numbers. In this case use the paragraph number, if available, with the abbreviation para.

APA style uses the following specific characteristics:

• Running head.
• Page numbers begin from the title page.
• In-text citation/references.
• Times New Roman or similar font.
• Double spaces.
• Paragraph indents.
• Very specific headings and subheadings style.