Assignment
COMM 310: Business & Professional Writing

Reading Tasks
Due: On date assigned
Form: Word Document
Submission: On Canvas, saved as Lastname_ReadingTask-1.docx
Value: 125 points total: 14 assignments @ 10 points each with 15 points possible extra credit (12.5% of overall grade)


Description and Rationale: Your book is full of great information. Simply skimming the book isn’t enough for you to fully engage in the material and be prepared for in-class discussions. This assignment allows you to reflect upon the material and practice what you have learned for better engagement and recall.

Assignment: For this assignment, you will complete tasks from your textbook at the end of each chapter reading (please review course schedule for dates and chapters assigned). On a Word document, you will answer the questions to the best of your ability based on what you have understood from the reading. For each chapter, you will complete different tasks. Please follow the outline below to know what your assigned reading tasks are for each chapter:

Chapter 1 (C1) / Chapter Review: 1-10 / Chapter 8 (C8) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Direct/Indirect Strategies: 16-25
Chapter 2 (C2) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Writing Improvement: Choose one for each of the six areas / Chapter 9 (C9) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Chapter 3 (C3) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Sentence Faults: Pick 3
Emphasis: Pick 3
Active Voice: Pick 1
Passive Voice: Pick 1
Parallelism: Pick 1
Dangling Modifiers: Pick 1 / Chapter 10 (C10) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Chapter 4 (C4) / Chapter Review: 1 – 10
Flabby Expressions: Pick 1
Long Lead-ins: Pick 1
Fillers: Pick 1
Redundancies: Pick 1
Empty Words: Pick 1
Trite Business Phrases: Pick 1
Clichés, slang: Pick 1
Buried Verbs: Pick 1
Lists, Bullets, Headings: Pick 1 / Chapter 11 (C11) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Chapter 5 (C5) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Message Openers: Pick 1
Bulleted Lists: Pick 1 / Chapter 12 (C12) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Chapter 6 (C6) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Improving Subject Lines and opening paragraph: Pick 1 / Chapter 13 (C13) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Radical Rewrite: Inadequate Cover Letter
Chapter 7 (C7) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Passive-Voice Verbs: Pick 1
Subordinating Bad News: Pick 1
Implying Bad News: Pick 1 / Chapter 14 (C14) / Chapter Review: 1-10
Asking Your Own Questions

Scoring Standard: While correct responses are important, this assignment will be primarily assessed upon completion. As long as you answer each of the questions thoughtfully and according to what your book is asking, you will receive full credit.