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Business
Correspondence by Fax
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Some
Ideas on Why and How to Teach it
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This article explains how
we have attempted to deal with a problem we have encountered when teaching corporate
language students how to write business correspondence. Despite teaching in a number of
multinational companies, we find that the story is always the same. Students indicate that
their needs in areas such as using the telephone and socializing are being met, but they
are dissatisfied with the writing components of courses. They repeatedly make the point
that the model letters presented in textbooks bear little resemblance to the type of
correspondence they handle at work. They mention the fax as the written medium they work
with most.
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We will briefly describe
some research (Warwick 1992) carried out to discover what people in business really are
writing, then move on to consider how well textbooks cover this area and finally, present
one possible approach to teaching fax writing.
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The main method of
investigation was via a questionnaire. Questions focused on finding out how common media
such as letters, telex, and fax are used in business correspondence, and when and why one
medium might be preferred to another. This questionnaire was sent to over 30 people
working in multinational companies in both Europe and the United States. The respondents
included secretarial and managerial level employees. Interviews were also conducted with
"specialist informants" (Selinker 1979) working in offices; these were people
who were willing to talk about their work and could be thought of as experts due to the
fact that they write and receive correspondence daily. These informants provided a real
insider's view on business correspondence, enabling us to clarify doubts raised by answers
to the questionnaire.
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The final method of
investigation was a corpus of around 200 faxes. These faxes represented the solid evidence
to complement the information obtained through the questionnaire and interviews.
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The results of the
research could not have been clearer. The fax is, without doubt, the most common medium of
written communication in the business world. The telex and the posted letter are less
frequently used in business circles nowadays. Indeed, even electronic mail, which will
probably become the medium of the future, but is at present only used by a minority of
companies, has already outstripped letters and telex.
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It should be remembered
that this research was restricted to multinational companies. Almost all of the
correspondence considered here was inter-office-faxes sent from one company branch to
another, for example, from Frankfurt to Minneapolis. Employees of multinational
corporations seem to write almost exclusively to other employees within the organization.
Communication between companies on a national level tends to be written in the local
language, and is not a problem for the EFL teacher.
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Armed with this
information, we embarked upon a secondary level of research to see how well textbooks on
business correspondence prepared students for the real business environment. Past
experience had made us pessimistic that textbooks would accurately reflect current
practices. This situation is reminiscent of the research done by Williams (1988) into the
language used in business meetings. She found that there was very little correlation
between the language presented in textbooks and what business people actually said in
meetings. The intention here is to answer the same question which Williams posed, "Is
there anything in common?"-in this instance, between the situation presented in
textbooks and what our research revealed.
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Results of the textbook research
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A quick check through the
books presently on sale revealed that in most cases the focus was almost entirely on
business letters. Typically the fax was either not mentioned at all, or given no more than
peripheral treatment. Without wishing to pick on any books, we would like to cite some of
the books we reviewed.
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Writing
for Business , by Martin Wilson (1987), and Company to
Company , by Andrew Littlejohn (1988), are two cases in point.
These books potentially shield themselves from criticism by stating
that they are primarily concerned with letters. It is clear that
letters are seen as the basic, most common element in business
correspondence. Company to Company elaborates on this point
by explaining that memos, for example, are not included as "the
course is intended to teach correspondence between companies rather
than within companies" (1988:11). While one welcomes some
explanation of the inclusion or exclusion of items from books,
it is still possible to take issue with the decision. If the interoffice
fax is the most common type of correspondence, why is it being
ignored?
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Two other books can be
cited . Secretarial Contacts , by Nick Brieger and Andrew Cornish (1989), is one of
the few books to specifically mention the fax. Unfortunately, however, this mention is
restricted to a reading passage on office equipment, and offers no real information on how
or when the fax is used. Indeed, the explanation of the fax's function is limited to one
line, "it is for sending copies of documents, etc." (1989:15). Once again, no
comment is made on the fax's role as the number one medium of business correspondence. It
is simply regarded as another piece of office equipment.
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Our final example has been
included to show that there are some brighter spots in this generally disappointing
examination of textbooks. The revised edition of A Handbook of Commercial
Correspondence (Ashley 1992) contains a chapter on electronic correspondence which
looks at the fax, electronic mail, telegrams, cables, and the telex. Unfortunately,
coverage is restricted to some general comments on what a fax is, and only a few examples
are given.
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The general tenor of
comments in this section has been negative. Maybe it is time to reiterate that our purpose
has not been to rubbish or ridicule any textbooks, but to put the spotlight on what the
books claim to be doing and what they omit. In answering the question "is there
anything in common?" then, the response must be that there are certainly some
elements in common, but not by any means as many as there could or should be. Ashley's
book shows that the fax is finally beginning to creep into the most recently published
books, but that there are still no books which systematically attempt to teach how to
write a fax. It is to this problem that we shall now turn.
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The problem was now clear.
Our students needed work on writing faxes, yet published textbooks provided almost no
guidance in this area. The onus was on us to develop our own course in fax writing. We
will describe here the approach which we adopted-one that we found to be simple, yet
effective.
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The approach can be
divided into four steps. First, faxes were put into categories based on what function they
were carrying out. Next, the faxes in each category were broken down into their
constituent parts, to show the basic organizational pattern of a fax message. Third, each
category was examined for typical language. Finally, we turned the students loose and
invited them to write their own faxes.
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Step 1: Fax
categories. After studying the corpus of faxes, which contained examples from both
native and non-native writers, three major functional categories emerged: requests,
replies, and informing. The central criterion for the final category was that no reply was
required; classifying faxes as either requests or replies proved straightforward. This
broad division was accepted and recognized by our students.
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Step 2: Breakdown of
the three functional categories. We now took our students through what the
research had revealed as the basic organizational pattern of each type of fax. For
example, the following four-step pattern was observed in request faxes:
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- An opening section providing the background context to the
forthcoming request.
- The request or action line-usually one sentence which states what
exactly is being requested.
- A thank you line-usually expressing gratitude in advance for the
recipient's fulfilling of the request.
- A closing salutation or sign off line.
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| TO: Laura Hess |
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FAX : 202-555-1234 |
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| FROM: Anne Deschamps |
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| DATE: October 24, 1994 |
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| The following number of PIMs were
ordered in the Spanish and Italian languages: |
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Spanish |
Italian* |
| Legend Plus |
60 |
53 |
| DPDT |
__ |
23 |
| OxyElite |
40 |
53 |
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| *3 of each were ordered by Switzerland |
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| Given these low quantities, Marketing
Europe (John Hunt) wonders whether we should go through the effort and expense of doing
Spanish and Italian translations of the PIM at all. |
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| Therefore, we would like to know
whether you could manage with English language PIMs for these products in your country? |
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| Please provide us with
your input on this by fax as soon as possible. |
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| If you have any questions, please call. |
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| Thanks in advance. |
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| Best regards, |
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| Anne Deschamps |
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In "reply
faxes," a three-step pattern was observed:
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- A section or line referring to the previous communication.
- The answer section, containing the information which was
requested.
- A closing salutation or "sign off" line.
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These
patterns were presented to students by showing them transparencies
of authentic faxes from the corpus and pointing out the various
steps. We should stress here that our presentation of these patterns
was not in any way prescriptive. The patterns were explained as
basic formats, but ones which were often changed to suit different
contextual situations or writers' idiosyncrasies. To this end,
faxes which conformed to the patterns, and those which omitted
or added elements, were shown. This provided students with an
opportunity to discuss why certain additions or omissions had
been made (maybe contextual factors, or to whom the writer is
writing, etc.), but did not destroy the idea that there is an
underlying structure for fax writing. At this point it should
also be reiterated that the faxes we showed to our students were
both native and nonnative examples. We found this to be positive
and useful. By examining nonnative examples, students were able
to identify with the style of writing and even with some of the
mistakes. They could pick out and correct awkward statements as
well as grammar or vocabulary mistakes, something which they found
quite enjoyable! The use of these faxes also served to compare
content and style in the writing of nonnative and native speakers;
interestingly, many similarities were found.
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To ensure that students
had properly understood the organizational patterns, we finished this step with a jumbled
fax activity. Students were presented with faxes which had been cut up into sections
corresponding to the basic patterns. They then had to identify the fax as a request, a
reply or an informing fax, and put it back into its original order.
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Step 3: The language
of each step. Students were next asked to brainstorm any functional expressions or
language which they would expect to find in the various parts of a fax. This entailed
considering how they would greet the addressee, what construction or language they would
use for the request line, and so on.
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As this is not the place
to elaborate on our findings, we will limit ourselves to a few brief comments. Broadly
speaking, the faxes in the corpus were written in a direct, fairly informal style.
Examples of this would be the frequency of the Please + IMPERATIVE structure, as in
"please let me know whether...", and the use of first names
("Frank..."), without titles or "dear...," as an address form.
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Despite
being generally informal, however, we must also point out that
a noticeable characteristic of fax language was the mixed formality
levels which often appeared either between faxes, or even within
one message. Thus, while writers might use a first name address
form and a Please + IMPERATIVE action line, they might equally
well include a more formal "if you have any questions please
do not hesitate to call," line. This trend was seen in both
native and nonnative faxes. One can only speculate as to why this
occurs. One explanation could be that writers are confused by
the fax's speed, which makes it more like a telephone call than
a written message. This speed aspect produces the informal language,
while the written aspect may encourage the inclusion of more formal
expressions. Regardless of whether this is the case or not, the
variety of language found in faxes need not cause any great difficulties
in terms of teaching. As in step 2, the emphasis is not on how
a fax must be written, but on what is typical in today's business
world. One can explain that in general the language is informal,
but that a number of more traditional, letter-like phrases still
tend to be included. Students can be shown how they are typically
written and then be guided towards finding a style they are comfortable
with.
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After brainstorming their
own functional expressions, we took the students back through the authentic fax
transparencies in order to look at and discuss the language used. This process can be
supplemented by producing a handout of common expressions seen in faxes.
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Step 4: Writing your
own fax. The students have now seen different kinds of faxes and the way they are
organized. The language used in each stage of a fax message has also been considered. All
that is left is for them to get practice in writing their own. We gave our students
realistic situations from their work and asked them to write the appropriate fax. If both
teacher and student can be reached by fax, the authenticity of this exercise can be
extended by asking students to fax the teacher messages as part of their homework.
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Once this introductory
look at faxes has been completed, succeeding classes can be dedicated to remedial workshop
sessions. Students can bring in their own authentic faxes and these can be used as the
basis for discussion and improvement or correction activities.
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What we
have presented in this article is our response to a problem that
we believe is widespread in business writing courses. Our students
reacted very positively to our focus on faxes and our particular
method of presenting them. Using authentic native and nonnative
examples of fax messages played a major role in obtaining this
positive response.
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We have deliberately not
said much about what our investigations of faxes revealed in order to focus more upon
developing a methodology for teaching how to write them. The onus is on teachers to get
out and do their own research. Ours has been limited to the US/western European situation.
Though we are confident that our findings are typical of what is taking place in today's
business correspondence, it is important that teachers investigate the needs of their own
students. This is particularly so as textbooks seem to be letting us down at the moment.
Publishers are far too slow in responding to the changing face of today's business world.
Tebeaux has it right when she stresses that "we must constantly attempt to reassess
course content by continuing to ask our students already on the job, 'How useful are the
skills you learned? How can we make our writing courses more relevant in preparing
students for the work place?'" Hopefully the research and methodology described here
will encourage teachers and publishers alike to undertake more such basic research to keep
up-to-date with our students' needs.
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- Ashley, A. 1992. A handbook of commercial
correspondence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Brieger, N. and A. Cornish. 1989.
Secretarial contacts: communication skills for secretaries
and personal assistants. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall-Regents.
- Littlejohn, A. 1988. Company to company:
a new approach to business correspondence in English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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