The article analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of written communication in comparison with oral speech. Its sections contain a definition and tips for overcoming the most typical mistakes in writing good service

Pros and Cons of Written Communication

How often do you compose letters, invitations, congratulations, memos, reports and a lot of other business and personal documents? Most probably, you are doing this regularly. How to claim debt without losing the debtor as a customer; how to prepare a commercial offer so that it attracts the attention of a potential buyer? Ability to effectively use written communication is the key to success in any sphere. Badly drafted commercial papers at best may go unnoticed, but at worst they lead to a serious conflict with your boss, partner or client.

Diversification of Interaction Types

Communication can be defined as a process of sharing and comprehending messages between two or more people in order to motivate a particular behavior or influence it. The purpose of the communicatory process is to provide an understanding of the data. A full exchange occurs only in the case when one side offers information, while the other perceives them.

An effective interaction requires each of the parties certain competencies, habits, and experience. Representations of such an activity imply two formats, namely: oral and written. The initial one is most ordinary in a variety of companies – these are meetings, reports, presentations, group discussions, official conversations, as well as an informal exchange of news and opinions. In similar situations, there is an opportunity to immediately express one or another thought and receive instant feedback.

Simulateunusly you may immediately find out if your message is understood and what the intentions of the addressee are. The dominant drawback of verbal links is manifested when the transmitted information passes through several persons. The consequence of this is its unjustified reduction or distortion – the more a number of individuals, the more reason to believe that it will be misinterpreted.

Transmission and reading of written notifications is another type of verbal contacts. Because of their tangibility, they are easier to verify than oral messages. So, if any written order was sent to the archive, then, if necessary, you can refresh its contents in memory. Writing affects speech. The most obvious example is pronunciation under the impact of spelling, for instance, in English, the word “theater” is pronounced with the sound / O / instead of the original / t /. If we accept that language influences our way of thinking, this statement may have large-scale consequences.

Features of Written Communication.

Modern technologies turn old methods of gathering and presenting data into a decisive source of competitive advantage. Now, when the informational flow becomes almost limitless, it needs to pay special attention to the forms and ways of presenting it. The priority difference between written and oral interaction is that the initial is perceived visually. The second is audible. The phrases presented on paper have a consistency whereas oral appeals are quite permanent and changeable in nature.

The physical availability of the composed text does not depend on the presence of the author or listener. For the oral presentation, the presence of a speaker and an audience is necessary. Typically, a writing person is able to take the time to prepare his composition in the absence of the reader, whereas the speaker frequently has to create a speech immediately.

By its character, written language is monologic. Consequently, it leaves less scope for the writer to explain his intentions in the future or even to determine whether his intentions were understandable. The litterateur has more time. That is why the written discourse allows the use of more complex grammatical constructions and abstract concepts.

Thanks to intonation, the timbre of voice and other means, oral speech makes it possible to express more nuances of emotional tone than writing. But the latter provides the author more freedom. It is manifested in reasoning, regardless of his social environment, encouraging originality.

Conveniences and Limitations of Written Communication

Learning an epistolary speech, it is necessary to examine its psycho-physiological mechanisms. Such an interaction requires the next methods of generating texts:

• Choice of words necessary to create a perfect paper of a certain thematic focus;
• The distribution of subjective traits in a group of sentences;
• The selection of the predicate as the core part in the sense;
• Organization of links between phrases.

Written communications may include factual data, ideas, opinions, and statements. As a means of transmission, words or visualized symbols are applied. The benefits of similar messages in comparison with other types are as follows:

• The recording of data, which can subsequently be referred to;
• The ability to send the same message to a lot of people at once;
• Implementation of planning, selection, and proper formulation of thoughts;
• Transfer of official or confidential evidence;
• The possibility to clearly articulate, agree on and formalize the terms of contractual relations;
• Means for maintaining business and personal relationships;
• Providing a permanent information trace since akin messages can be stored by the recipient and viewed as needed.

Nevertheless, written communication has a number of shortcomings.

• One-pointedness;
• Enhance the time to prepare a right document;
• Increasing the cost of paper, design, printing, mailing services, etc.;
• A time delay between sending and receiving;
• Impossibility to correct the text.
• Overcoming Difficulties in Writing

In numerous problems of misunderstanding, technology is blamed. Even if we exclude technological failures, the human errors associated with choosing the wrong channel or format will make felt. In fact, innovations only provide users with the ways of communication. But the quality of the communication that is carried out with their aid continues to be determined by people. Correctly taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of any recipient, you may cope with potential barriers:

• Semantic ones mean misinterpretation of the essence
• Organizational problems are related to the remoteness of participants, specialized tasks, differences in authority and status
• Interpersonal blocks include a psychological climate, values, and negative attitudes of members
• Individual issues can be determined by physical handicaps or personal communication skills
• Social and cultural hassles consider the norms or behavioral reactions of certain groups of people
• Economic, geographical, and temporal obstacles cover monetary resources and spatial factor
• Technological challenges focus on the effective usage of dedicated techniques for the transmission of messages.

Thus, the advantage of written communications is that persons tend to be more deliberate about text essence, compared with oral speech. But it requires a lot of efforts and a better vocabulary. In this case, oral communication is more flexible, allowing you to adapt to the interlocutor during a conversation; another important drawback of an epistolary genre is the lack of immediate feedback. Possessing knowledge about the pros and cons, you can choose the most acceptable way of interaction, focusing on a specific situation.