Written Communications: Being Heard and Understood

By: Professor Allison Friederichs Atkison, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Professor Allison Friederichs Atkison

Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

We’ve all encountered bad writing at some point in our lives. We’ve possibly even authored some ourselves. And it’s pretty clear when writing is bad. Whether you’re writing business letters, memos, emails, reports, announcements, or some other professional communication, the pragmatic communicator can be far more effective than the multiloquent one.

Because we are judged by our ability to communicate with direction, focus, and confidence - along with inspiration and empathy, no matter who you are and what your goal is - getting the right message across is absolutely essential to achieving your objectives.

In the 12 rewarding lectures of Written Communications: Being Heard and Understood, Professor Allison Friederichs, associate teaching professor and the associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Denver, University College, will share the secrets to sharpening your written, oral, and interpersonal communications skills.

Bringing plenty of humor and enthusiasm, along with dozens of tools, examples, and exercises, Professor Friederichs takes you through each component of writing a successful business communication - from picking the right words; to ensuring the grammar and punctuation are correct; to analyzing, crafting, and editing your message.

Most important, she will show you how impactful communication isn’t about you: It’s about your reader. Once you understand your audience, she’ll show you how to target the message, make appropriate word choices, incorporate sound logic, and untangle complex syntax using a combination of examples and activities.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 The Great Courses (P)2020 The Teaching Company, LLC

Can't believe she says ex-cetera.

She points out other people's mistakes, but repeatedly says ex-cetera. She did in another book I listened to too.

Very good

this professor has an outstanding speaking voice and as with everything that the Great Courses produces the content is outstanding this particular course I found to be very helpful to me as a businessman she has a lot of very powerful ideas

Great refresher course.

I learned business writing many years ago, before the existence of word processing and email. After reading many social media posts in recent years, I became concerned that the plethora of bad writing might have a negative effect on me. I feel better now that I've completed this course on Written Communications. I don't do much writing these days but I might buy a style guide anyway.

Well worth the listening time

The course is packed with useful information for cultivating a more effective writing style. I would highly recommend the course!

Useful for niche audiences

Useful just for aspiring editors or those who write long, formal business reports.
Grammar/punctuation focused on minutiae (em dash vs en dash vs hyphen)
Some parts here and there may be useful to a broad audience, such as being very clear on exactly who you are writing to and what you want them to do.
Still, not super useful to the average professional.

Great Addition To My Toolbox

The techniques outlined in this course are already helping me. I am excited to use the ACE method on my writing tasks. The method has provided a map to becoming a better writer!

Excellent Foundation for Good Writing

This is a great listen if you're unsure of your writing skills. The lecturer goes through all the basics for writing clearly and concisely. She also provides plenty of "before" and "after" examples so you understand how word usage and placement can make a difference in the meaning of a sentence. The lecturer gives simple explanations (like "past perfect tense" is to describe a past event before another past event - "I had stopped reading the book when I lost track of all the characters"). The only downside is that learning grammar through an audiobook is harder.

this was a good and powerful meeting

it was impactful and good to listen I love to listen to to study it can help you understand the true meaning of great sentence

Just Horrible

I just completed another book where I gave 5 stars for a stellar publication, but this book is simply horrible.

I listen to a lot of books while I drive to enhance general knowledge. I judge audio books on two criteria - Narrator and Content.

This book fails on both accounts.

The narrator is painful to listen to because it seems she's reading to children. I tried numerous times thinking it may have been my moments frame of mind, but not so. Nothing personal, but she should not be presenting to adults.. Children Yes (maybe).

The content of the book is also unacceptable. It starts with a long list of questions.. Do you have trouble getting your message across? Are you at a loss for words?, Feels endless and painful.... It's really stupid.. Do you think I bought the book just by chance - without reading the title? Yes, I would like to develop better writing and communication skills, but I will not do it with this book. It's filled with garbage examples instead of insightful process oriented instruction. Writing is a process, but you'll never learn it here. It's just the happy narrator with her smiling face and ridiculous content.

Painful, Idiotic and not recommrnded, unless you are the kind of person that likes going to the dentist for Root Canal.

😳🤯😱

Pretty good

This lecture set has some useful beginner-level advice. I sometimes work as an editor and am currently on the lookout for resources to recommend to people who struggle with writing. This one was pretty good, especially the second half.

I'm not a fan of the lecturer's chatty presentation style -- this lecture set could have been a lot more concise, and I found her manner pretty annoying. The section on grammar is hard to follow, but I think that's just a limitation of the audio format. If you need to brush up on grammar, you're way better off with a printed book. You can skip right over the lecture on "the link between language and culture" because most of it is wrong; thankfully that lecture is only a sidebar, and the bad linguistics mostly end there. The second half of the course tells you how to write better by focusing on the purpose of the document and the intended reader, and there, the advice is excellent. If you aren't already implementing these techniques, they can indeed make a big difference.

The focus of this lecture set is business communication and other utilitarian writing. It's aimed mostly at people who don't like writing, struggle with it, and do it only because they have to. If you are already a fairly skilled writer, you will find most of the advice very basic, or even condescending, and this lecture set is not for you. It also doesn't talk about academic or creative writing; some of the advice is transferable, but there are probably much better resources for those kinds of writing.

So far, the best up-to-date beginner- to intermediate-level writing resource I've found is the book "How to Not Write Bad" by Ben Yagoda. It covers much of the same ground as this lecture set, eschews the bad linguistics, has a more thorough and nuanced grammar section, and contains more broadly applicable advice. (It also has dry humour instead of airy chatter, which is another plus for me.) If you're considering getting this lecture set, I'd recommend the book as well.