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Janavia Cousins
Professor Jessica Camargo
English 1101
8 November 2012
Individual Report: Business Discourse Community
Communication is the key to every field of work. Communication is the transfer and
exchange of info and understanding from one person to another. Communication can be formal
or informal, verbal, nonverbal or written. Certain barriers of communication are used in the
business discourse community such as perception, role of gender, authority, and status levels.
There is a time and place to use jargons and slang when talking to someone but when a report
has to be turned into an executive manager there are a number of citation styles that could be
used to sum up an employees work. These citation styles include APA (American Psychological
Association) style, Harvard Business School style, and MLA (Modern Language Association)
style.
APA format is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. When
using the APA format, essays should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x
11") with 1" margins on all sides and 12 pt. in Times New Roman font (General APA
Guidelines, 1). A page header should be added to the top of every page in the top right corner
that includes the page number. There should also be a running head starting at the left corner of
every page. The running head should be a shortened version of the reports’ full title. The report
will include the title page, abstract, main body and references when it is typed in APA format. In
business school each student is required to take a social science such as psychology or sociology.
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When enrolled in these classes students will have to learn and adapt to the APA format because
it will be used often for reports and essays.
The Harvard Business School citation style is based off of the Chicago-Style Citation.
The Chicago-Style Citation is most commonly used in the humanities and provides writers with a
system for referencing their sources through footnote or endnote citation in their writing and
through bibliography pages. The Chicago-Style Citation is uses a slightly different format than
the APA and MLA citation styles. The margins should be set at no less than 1” and no greater
than 1.5”. The font should be Times New Roman or Palatino because they are both easy
readable. The font size should be no less than 10 pt. but 12 pt. is preferred when using the
Chicago-Style. Text should be constantly double-spaced except if there are block quotations,
table titles, and figure captions, they should be single-spaced. One may see the Chicago-Style
used in a research paper in the business discourse community.
The MLA format is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the
liberal arts and humanities. Just as the APA format a report must be typed and printed on white
8.5 x 11-inch paper, double-spaced, Times New Roman used as the legible font, font size should
be 12pt, one space should be used after each period and punctuation mark and all of the margins
should be set to 1 inch (General Guidelines, 3). A header with the page number should be
inserted in the top corner of every page. In the business discourse community, the MLA format is
frequently used in business letters. When typing a business letter there are a few differences than
the standard MLA format. A business letter is typed in block style meaning the paragraphs are
justified to the left and single spaced and there is a double space between each paragraph.
An interview was held with Tonya Hatten, a business analyst for HP (Hewlett Packard).
Hatten was asked what types of writings are done in her field of work in the academic and
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professional worlds. The types of writings are done in this field are proposal type writings,
definition, and requirements documentations for the professional worlds. Academically the
writings could probably be used as a teaching mechanism to demonstrate how to gather
requirements as well as proposal writing (Hatten, 1). Hatten was also asked what topics are most
important to the current conversations taking place in the field and what are the big issues being
discussed. The topics that are most important to the current conversations in this field are the
healthcare reform and the changes to how providers are being paid and are going to be paid. The
big issues being discussed are benefits that are being removed or revised for members that
receive Medicaid which will potentially affect their overall health (Hatten, 2). Mrs. Hatten has to
use certain databases and citation formats in her field of work. The discourse community she is
involved in relates to business and the medical field. Hatten was asked what are some of the
most well-known publications in the field and what databases are most useful for doing research
in the field. The most well-known publications in this field would be gathering requirements and
writing business proposals (Hatten, 4). The databases that are most useful for doing research in
my field are SQL databases. We actually have an UI, user interface, that we utilize to input data
in which “behind” the UI, are the SQL driven databases (Hatten, 3). Medical terminology is
required for working in Hatten’s discourse community and just goes to show all business is not
the same.
As a business major, one must know when to use which citation format and to make sure
it used properly. Students need to communicate with professors to know what the professor may
require or what the professor may recommend. Communication is a great factor in all fields of
work and learning how to communicate in the business discourse community is even more
important.
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