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Unit 12: Basics of Official Correspondence
l Permanent in nature: Written form of business conversation is permanent. The growth notes
of an organization is promoted, to a large extent, by reference to its old, well-maintained
records and minutes of meetings.
l Facilitates in order to assign responsibility: Business correspondence facilitates proper
assignation of responsibilities. One may sometimes go back on the spoken word, but not
on words which have been, put on paper. Moreover, the lower staff behaves with more
responsibility, and also feels secure, when communication is sent in writing. There is
greater pursuance and seriousness attached to something that is “in writing”.
l Permits substitution and revision: While spoken words cannot be taken back or erased,
since they have to be instantaneously and thoughtfully planned out, the sender of a written
message gets time to conceive the idea and formulate his message after due substitution
and revision of his text.
Task Collect some newspaper articles/advertisements from companies that were aimed
at image building.
Like oral communication, even written communication is not free from demerits. Some of the
major disadvantages of written communication are as follows:
l Limited to literate world: Written communication is limited to literate people, who have
the capability to read and write. Though, in spite of literacy levels rising across the world,
there still remains a great chunk of people who are still devoid of this skill.
l Time consuming: Unlike oral communication, written communication takes time to reach
the target. Both encoding and transmission of the message take time, resulting in delays.
It is, therefore, a time-consuming process. Postal delays cause a lot of time to be elapsed
between despatch of written message and its receipt by the target.
l Lot of paper work: Written communication creates mountains of paper cluttered around
the premises of an organization. It is a common sight in offices, and the staff has a tough
time trying to handle it. Very often valuable papers get lost. Managers, therefore, have to
be extra careful to keep sensitive or confidential material in their own custody.
l Needs expertise in expression: Written communication runs the risk of becoming ineffective
in the hands of people otherwise good in their job, but poor in expression. That is why
it is a serious concern of a modern organization to recruit people who are very good in
expression, especially in letter and report-writing ability.
l Lack of immediate feedback: Written communication is mostly handicapped by its inability
to get immediate feedback. The receiver of the message takes his time to understand and
respond to the message.
l Costly: Written communication is a costly process in terms of stationery and the number of
people involved in typing and sending out letters.
l More man hours needed: By the same logic, it is costly in terms of man-hours lost in taking
dictation, typing, entering in the diary, dispatching etc., The same job can be done more
efficiently and expeditiously by harnessing modern technology like video conferencing,
computers and e-mails.
l No immediate clarification: Written communication has another disadvantage. If the
receiver of a written message at a distance seeks some clarification, he cannot have it, as
quickly as he would like to. He will also have to write back and wait for the reply to his
query. Immediate clarification is also not possible in exchange of written communication.
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