1. From Signs and Signals to Artifacts and Assumptions:
A Student of Management Observes Communication Culture in Los Angeles
Wayne Smith, Ph.D.
Department of Management
CSU Northridge

2. Motivation at the Academic-level
Middleton, D. (2011), “Students Struggle for Words”, Wall Street Journal, Mar 3. B8
Schools
Stanford, Berkeley, Northeastern, Rutgers, Cornell, Univ. of Penn
Students are having trouble with multiple writing issues (e.g., sometimes too casual, sometimes not concise, sometimes not valuing writing at all)
Firms
Booz –Allen Hamilton, Morgan Stanley, General Mills
Need to train or re-train professionals on how to communicate
GMAT
The writing scores on this exam have dropped in the past three years (this could possibly be due to the number of international students)
But the WSJ should come and see the high quality of the written work submitted by my students!

3. Motivation at the Organization-level
Ramstad, E. (2008), “CEO Broadens Vistas at LG”, Wall Street Journal, May 21. B1
SUMMARY: LG is a [very large, Korean] company in transition thanks to the efforts of its CEO Yong Nam. The company is trying to reinvent itself as a 21st century multinational. This requires a major shift in the corporate culture to encourage employees to ask tough questions. Another shift is the use of English as the company's language. The goal of the company is to become a global powerhouse in appliances and electronics.
WSJ: You're requiring English to be used more at headquarters and to talk to the rest of the organization. Why?
Mr. Nam: English is essential. The speed of innovation required to compete in the world mandates that we must have seamless communication. We cannot depend on a small group of people who are holding the key to all communication throughout the world. That really impedes information sharing and decision-making. I want everybody's wisdom instead of just a few.

4. Motivation at the Professional-level
Beason, L. (2001), “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors”, College Composition and Communication, 53 (1), Sep.
1. He provided sample writing errors to businesspeople.
2. He then classified the “responses and images of the writer”
Error Category I: image of writer as a writer
Hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed
Error Category II: image of writer as a business person
Faulty thinker, not a detail person, poor oral communicator, poorly educated person, or sarcastic/pretentious/aggressive
Error Category III: image of writer as a representative
Can’t represent the company to customers and/or can’t represent the company in court

5. Most Widely Spoken Languages (numbers in millions)
Number of First Language Speakers
Number of Second Language Speakers
Total Number of Speakers
English
340
1,000
1,340
Chinese
873
178
1,051
Hindi
370
120
490
Spanish
360 60
420
Russian
167
110
277
Arabic
206 24
230
Portuguese
203 10
213
Bengali
207 4
211
Indonesian 23
140
163
Japanese
126 1
127
German 95 28
123
French 65 50
115
Source: Meyer, C. (2009), Introducing English Linguistics, Cambridge University Press.

6. Some Errors Beyond the Reach of Current Technology
Hacker, D., and Sommers, N. (2014), “A Writer’s Reference 8th ed.”, Bedford/St. Martin’s
“[Current word processors have difficulty with]…writing context and culture, appropriate style of discourse, degree of ‘assertiveness,’ faulty parallelism, misplaced and dangling modifiers, homonyms, missing words and omitted verbs, shifts in verb tense or mood, coordination and subordination, sentence variety and fragments, run-on sentences, common redundancies, unnecessary wordiness, jargon and abbreviations, clichés, sexist language, irregular verbs, pronoun agreements and references, missing or misused commas, semi-colons, apostrophes, hyphens, quotation marks, capitalization, and problems with emphasis.”

7. Missing comma after intro. element
Lunsford, A., and Lunsford, K. (2008), “Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study”, College Composition and Communication, 59 (4), Jun. p. 795
Rank
Error or Error Pattern 1.
Wrong word 2.
Missing comma after intro. element 3.
Incomplete or missing documentation 4.
Vague pronoun reference 5.
Spelling error (including homonyms) 6.
Mechanical error with a quotation 7.
Unnecessary comma 8.
Unnecessary or missing capitalization 9.
Missing word
10.
Faulty sentence structure

8. Missing comma w/ nonrestrictive ele.
Lunsford, A., and Lunsford, K. (2008), “Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study”, College Composition and Communication, 59 (4), Jun. p. 795
Rank
Error or Error Pattern
11.
Missing comma w/ nonrestrictive ele.
12.
Unnecessary shift in verb tense
13.
Missing comma in a compound sent.
14.
Unnecessary or missing apostrophe
15.
Fused (run-on) sentence
16.
Comma splice
17.
No pronoun-antecedent agreement
18.
Poorly integrated quotation
19.
Unnecessary or missing hyphen
20.
Sentence fragment

9. Punctuation – mult. Errors 2
Language Use Errors
Possessive pronoun form exception
Parallel inflection
Comma splice
Missing definite article
Wrong Word
Pluralized Adjective

10. “The Bottom Line”
--. (2004), “Writing: A Ticket to Work or a Ticket Out, A Survey of Business Leaders,” National Commission on Writing, Sep.
Summary Excerpts
“Writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for both employment and promotion, particularly for salaried employees.”
“People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion.”
Costs
“Based on the survey responses, it appears that remedying deficiencies in writing may cost American firms as much as $3.1 billion annually.”