To: Shari Weiss

From: CHAN HA
Date: December 2, 2014
Re: 10 things I have learned in this semester

In this memo, this is about the most important 10 things I have

learned in this class during this semester. First of all, I learned the
format of the memo and I have improved my writing skills of the
business writing. I have also learned how to make the PowerPoint
look more attractive and professional. Furthermore, I realized the
importance of a good listener for a speaker. Last but not least, I
have improved my presentation skills and understand the powerful
of the teamwork.

1. Business memo: Business memo is very important in our

future career because it is a common method of
communication in offices. Business memo is different with the
informal memo because it has to follow strict guidelines in
terms of format, with a header, opening, summary and
closing. I still remember that I really have no ideas about the
formal memo in the beginning of the class and I did badly in
my first memo. I have learned the format of the formal memo
and I have improved the writing skills during this semester.
2. Business writing: business writing is different with other
writings because it is more formal. For example, we should not
talk something we are not sure or understanding. One of the
most important things of business writing is simplification
because most of writings have clutter problem. Therefore, less
words is always better than more words in business writing.
3. PowerPoint: PowerPoint is a useful software and it is necessary
in a business presentation. The presenter should have a good
and suitable PowerPoint so the audiences will not be

distracted by the PowerPoint. There are some

recommendations for the PowerPoint. We should choose blue
as our background color because blue color is a good color
and it represents trust and credibility. The presenters should
use no less than 30-point font size so it helps the presenters
to limit the words in PowerPoint and more focus on the core of
the ideas.
4. Five things are important in human relationship: There are five
things important in human relationship and they are
predicting behavior, adapting to the environment, modifying
our behavior, building stronger relationship, and gaining
credibility. Predicting behavior means that we should guess
the meaning of other peoples behaviors. Adapting to the
environment means we have ability to adapt the change of
environment so we should try our best to adapt the new
environment. Modifying behavior means we should not
express our feeling directly in front of the public. Building
stronger relationship means we usually have best friend or
close friend among the people we know. Lastly, gaining
credibility means we should build our credibility.
5. Difference between hearing and listening: There was
important difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is
one natural sense while listening is intentional sense. That
means listening requires focus and attention. When we are
closing our eyes, we can easier to focus because we tend to
listen carefully. I learned that closing our eyes can help me to
listen more carefully from my heart.
6. Be an active listener: As I have mentioned, a good listener is
very important for a speaker and there are some tips for
becoming an active listener. For example, we should keep an
open mind while listening to other people. When I am listening
the presentation from other people, I am excited to learn the
new knowledge but not challenge with the ideas. I also
learned that taking selective note is very important because
we cannot remember all the details after the presentation so
note- taking process is very important. After the presentation,
we usually give the feedback to the presenter and positive

feedback can help the speaker to improve his/her presentation

skills.
7. Holding different views during the group discussion: When we
are holding different views with our groupmates in the
discussion, we should not fight back immediately. Instead, we
should calm down and find a better solution. We also should
not show a black face during the presentation because this
behavior is rude and disrespectful.
8. Group presentation skills: Presentation skills are also required
in a group presentation. For example, we should introduce our
group members and the topic of presentation before we start
our topic because it helps the audiences to know who we are
and what we are going to present. Eye contacts and smiles are
also important in the presentation because they help to
express our friendliness. The most important skill is that we
should show our enthusiasms. If we are not excited about our
topic, we cannot expect our audiences interested in it.
Therefore, we have to show passion for our topic through our
tone, facial expressions and gestures.
9. About Google: Since our group business report topic is Google,
I have found many information of Google. Although Google is
very successful as a search engine in the world, there are
some disadvantages of Google company. For example, Google
might show the invalid clicks on the ads to the advertisers
because of the click fraud. When we are using the Google
internet search engine, we receive advertisements for
commercial sites.
10. Power of teamwork: In fact, English is not my native
language and my presentation skills is very bad even not
enough for this class. I am glad that I have good groupmates
and they have helped me a lot in this semester. For example,
they would remind me the deadline of the homework and
borrow their notes to me. In every group discussion, they
would speak slowly so I would not miss any important ideas.
They also encouraged me to speak more in the group
presentation so I would have better performance in the
presentation. They make me understand the power of the
teamwork and corporation so I appreciate them very much.

I am very glad that I am in this class because of my good professor,

groupmates and classmates. Because of my poor oral and listening
skills, sometimes I feel so hard in this class. However, my
groupmates really help me a lot and I really understand the power of
the teamwork and corporation. To be honest, I have learned many
important writing and presentation skills in this class. I believe these
skills are important in my future career.