 |
GetTextbooks.com
Compare Prices & Save up to 90% |
|
|
|
| Login | Sign up | My Wish List |
 | | Business Communication Today (6th Edition) by Courtland L. Bovee, John V. Thill ISBN-10: 0130845132 ISBN-10: 0-13-084513-2 ISBN-13: 9780130845139 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-084513-9 Hardcover 1999-08-10 Prentice Hall Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description This is a "must have" for anyone whose job requires writing clear, professional reports, memos, e-mail, or letters. Helps readers refine their existing communications skills while learning how to communicate effectively via various mediums, including the Internet and other technologies. Listening, working in teams, and understanding nonverbal communication are also covered and a handy appendix includes grammar and usage fundamentals. For readers in all levels of business interested in improving their communications skills. | ||
Reviews | ||
Business Communication Today The book combines much useful infomation. Various examples and appendixes are helpful in ordinary (but important) questions. It is a straight-to-the-point book. | ||
What a waste of paper! Reviewer John Zabroski hits on some great points and I have a few more to add. The book definitely contains some useful information. This is why I give it two stars. Still, the amount of fluff, bloat and redundancy is incredible. It is painful to read through page after page where information is repeated. For concepts that would need a one inch paragraph for their explanation, the authors occupy a page. The nature of business communication is to be short and to the point. The authors completely fail to convey this essential feature. This book should have comprised of 200 pages maximum, not counting the appendices. Instead it turned into an almost 600 page monstrosity. In my opinion the price of paper is too low. This is why there is so much of it wasted. In some instances, things can turn outright ridiculous. For example, look at page 269. In the fifth line of the first paragraph the authors list objectivity as a trait of credibility. Then they encourage the reader to exceed this by "Being Objective" (the sixth bullet below the paragraph). Give me a break! | ||
How Did This Book Make It To The 8th Edition? If you are a college professor or instructor, please do not use this book. A far more accessible and technically correct book for your students would be Dale Carnegie's The Leader In You (How To Win Friends and Influence People). While Carnegie's book does not have "reading exercises" like a traditional textbook might, your students will get far more out of reading his book than Bovee's. I am a senior in college and my Communication for Business Professionals course is using this textbook as the primary learning resource. I feel this book was a waste of my money due to the number of content faults in the 8th Edition. I have not reviewed nor read previous editions. A major gripe I have with this book is incorrect statements, a polite way of saying the author did not fact-check and proof-read their work. Again, this book is in its 8th Edition and the current layout of this book is discouraging considering the book is supposed to be about communication. I accumulated a list of content faults regarding this book, and will try to share some of them with you to help dissaude you from wasting your money on this book: (1) Indirectly referring to the United States as a high-context culture, stating that high-context cultures prefer very strict schedules. A few pages earlier, the book contradicts this statement by directly detailing how the United States is a low-context culture. (2) The book constantly mixes up its point-of-view on what the best way to approach others is. Earlier on, it suggests its important to consider your own feelings first. A few chapters later, it scalds you for putting yourself before others and on several occasions reminds you that "earlier" in the text it referred to how important talking in terms of others desires is. What is the better way? Well, having read Dale Carnegie's book on leadership, I can tell you the best approach is always to "bait the hook to suit the fish" as Carnegie would say. In other words, address your audiences needs before you take into account your own feelings. Overall, the book tries to be all-encompassing and fails. To cover communication in detail, you cannot be general and all-encompassing. You have to be specific and follow a model for communication. This book also does not appropriately address large issues in communication, such as PERCEPTION. In business, perception is everything and can lead to you trying to negotiate too hard and costing your company dollars. There is a famous anecdote of Japanese and American businessman sitting across the table from one another negotiating a business deal. After the American finishes discussing his business proposal, he is unnerved by the silence of the Japanese negotiators to the point where he believes something is wrong. The end result, and conclusion of this anecdote, is the American perceived the need to devoid the silence by talking more. In the process, the American lowered his demands and the Japanese negotiators then agreed once the American backed himself into a corner. | ||
Business Communication Today I really liked the book. I got it pretty fast and with no problems. | ||
Great for reference Although I owned the 6th edition, I can say this book is a must have for everyone. Actually I was a silent person and everytime I wanted to talk, I was a bit trouble sometimes, and this book has help me communicating easier, whether it is business or general. With this book, started with easy to understand short-theory, move into non-verbal communications, divided by step-by-step preparations, suggestions, how-to-practice, then into verbal communications with letters, from routine & persuasive messages into how to deliver bad news (one of the hardest task), how to create report, how to make visual aids, how to make presentations, and how to make a job letter. One of greatest feature is it provides many sample letters include few other culture or other countries' style letters, and along with it, there's a reason why he or she write that. There's also some tips how to write in e-mail, or make recorded voice for telephone systems. This is a must have for everyone, include those who never attended this lecture. | ||