This study conducts a multimodal discourse analysis of the live streaming of Jiaqi Li, a well-known Chinese streamer. Integrating systemic functional grammar and systemic visual grammar to explore the construction of interpersonal meanings in Li's live streams, the authors found that Li uses verbal semiotics to convey information and feelings and, more important, to create his different interactive roles as an authoritative opinion leader, a protector of consumers’ benefits, and a friend who shares his experiences and recommends products. This study offers insight into e-commerce discourse and communication, adding to the literature on live streaming in commerce and business communication.

This study asks whether grammatical and mechanical errors bother business professionals, which of these types of errors are most bothersome, and whether such errors affect perceptions of the writer and their ethos. We administered a 17-question survey to roughly 100 business professionals whose roles are not primarily writing and communication within organizations. The findings show that business professionals are bothered by these errors and that the level of bothersomeness has increased from previous studies. Additionally, the findings show that participants have clear views of writers who make errors and that the context of the error matters. The authors conclude by offering implications for technical and professional communication.

Contrary to literary historians, humanist influences did not produce modern English prose style. Instead, technical or utilitarian discourse is inextricable from the development of modern English prose style. Modern English resulted from written text shaped by five factors: (a) brevity induced from accounting/administrative format; (b) aural/oral-based text, written to be heard and seen, that produced conversational style; (c) persistence of indigenous subject-verb-object syntax found in the earliest English documents; (d) a growing Renaissance book market of literate middle-class readers responding to speech-based prose; and (e) English scriptural renditions of the late Renaissance that associated colloquial speech with Protestantism. Of all writing produced before 1700, only a small amount was humanistic; the bulk was utilitarian. The Royal Society’s demand for “plain English” prevailed because the call for precise language by these early scientists reflected the indigenous nature of a plain English that had surfaced as early as 900.

Subject matter experts, under the influence of modernist notions of authorship, often view technical writers as mere grammar and punctuation specialists and marginalize them as their ignorant “other. ” Technical writers, on the other hand, as rhetoricians occupying a liminal space between different disciplines, can understand different disciplinary rhetorics. If subject matter experts, instead of marginalizing technical writers, would view them as liminal subjects who are knowledgeable in different disciplinary rhetorics, then technical writers, through liminal practice, may be able to use their knowledge of audience and rhetoric to improve the quality of documentation.

Revising instructions for clients of health care facilities provides students with valuable practice in good technical communication techniques: organizing information for maximum accessibility, analyzing the audience's needs, using formatting and graphics to enhance communication, and clarifying sentence structure and diction. Suitable for both individual and team work, the project offers experience in both revising instructions for a lay audience and writing persuasively. It also emphasizes the accountability of technical writers to the users of their documents.

This review of the relationship of law and art in the litigative context explores ways in which the methodologies of the novelist and other artists can be invoked by the lawyer in structuring and developing a case and presenting it to a court. To the litigators who transcend the form books and stereotypes and see their cases with a fresh eye, neither the law nor the facts are fixed in stone but rather created to meet the deepest realities of the case within the context of our most fundamental values and beliefs. Litigators, by the way they define and project the issues, can affect, even determine, what law and facts are legally relevant and dispositive. They must devise and write the story that threads the client's way out of the labyrinth. Mastery of the formal requirements of litigative writing is only a necessary first step. Freewriting; Hemingwayesque choice of words and syntax; harnessing the symbolic, often hidden, power of language; achieving the dramatic potential of case presentation—all these and more from the creative artist's repertoire empower litigators to win their cases. Resort is made not only to the applicable statutory, regulatory, and case law but also to the processes of the like of Cezanne, Conrad, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Joyce, Aristotle, and Faulkner.

This study compares the effectiveness of five leading grammar/style analysis software packages in analyzing business students' writing. The software exhibited considerable differences in the following areas: correctly identifying various mechanical and style errors, avoiding annoying and misleading false error messages, and providing helpful remedial advice. No prior research study has empirically compared grammar/style analysis software along all these important dimensions. PowerEdit was found to be the overall superior package, demonsrating proficiency in detecting errors in punctuation, sentence structure, passive voice, and weak wording. The results have significant implications for utilizing grammar/style analysis software to improve students' writing.

To find out more about the communication needs of people in business, the author sent questionnaires to 2,200 chief executive officers (CEOs) and directors of personnel or training. I received 207 answers. Respondents believe that oral communication before a small group is important and that principles of communication should be stressed over formats for letters and memos. They believe reading and editing, as well as grammar skills, are very important. In many respects, the results of this survey are similar to those of others done across the country in the past 20 years, but there are some comments on reading, editing, and writing letters with bad news that were not part of earlier surveys.

The major problem with report writing is not primarily due to poor grammar or mechanics—often blamed by the technical community. The real problems stem from lack of, or poorly developed, point and audience awareness. Such problems can render reports useless for the audience and for the author. These major deficiencies and many lesser deficiencies, however, can be avoided effectively and painlessly if authors follow a simple outlining approach in writing their reports.

This article describes a method for motivating second-language (L2) business communicators to increase their English proficiency through the use of double translation. The lesson is explained and illustrated in light of current research on both L2 pedagogy and intercultural communication theory. Examples of double translations are offered, along with anecdotal observations concerning the positive effects of the lesson. These data support the notion that teaching methods that empower L2 communicators while involving them in ideas are preferable to traditional grammar and syntax exercises.

Despite intense research efforts by both advertising and communication researchers, there is no definitive answer to the question of what makes a print advertisement successful. Yet, common wisdom contends that lexicon, syntax, and text layout have much to do with how readers perceive advertisements. This study, an extension and refinement of two of our previous studies, tests this assertion by assessing reader reactions to a broad range of lexical, syntactical, and text layout conditions, both in isolation and interactively. Our results suggest that in affecting readers' perceptions, the role of each of these elements independently is not quite as critical as perhaps assumed. Nonetheless, this research does suggest that certain perceptions are significantly affected by specific lexical, syntactical, and layout combinations, which indicates that creating effective advertisement text requires tailoring the copy to the target audience and thinking of the text as a synergy of both language and text layout elements.

The study demonstrates the language skills value added by business writing instruction. Descriptive Tests of Language Skills of the College Board (DTLS) covering sentence structure and usage were administered as a pretest/posttest assessment to students enrolled in two business writing courses. Instruction in business writing resulted in improved language skills as measured by the DTLS.

While writing teachers view the résumé as a sophisticated rhetorical chal lenge, students tend to see it as a "technical specification"of their employment qualifications. This study investigated the reader's perspective by examining how writing features influence recruiters' assessments of résumés. Eighteen recruiters rated 72 résumés describing fictitious mechanical-engineering stu dents. Four résumé features were systematically varied: relevance of previous work experience, elaboration ofindependent coursework, stylistic quality, and mechanical correctness. The major result suggests that technical work experi ence is important but not sufficient: If the résumés of technically well- qualified applicants contained grammatical errors, recruiters rated these résumés lower than résumés listing less experience but containing more accu rate writing.1