Reflect on your context: immediate context

It is 9:03am and you are driving on your way to have breakfast with a friend. You are hungry and irritated, as you haven’t eaten yet today, and eager to get to the restaurant because you are already late. At a stop light, the light turns green, but the person in the car in front of you is too busy texting to notice. What do you do? Do you honk your horn impatiently? Do you yell angrily at the driver, wishing they could hear you? If so, what do you say, and why do you say it?

Now imagine that it is 10:37am the same morning, and you have just finished having breakfast with your friend. It was delicious, and you are pleasantly full. You are giving your friend a ride home from the restaurant, and neither of you are in a rush. Again, you find yourself at a stop light, and again, a driver in front of you neglects to notice that the light has turned green. Except this time, this happens as you are caught up in pleasant conversation with your friend. How do you react this time? Has your reaction and your feelings about the driver in front of you changed compared to how you felt at 9:03am this morning? Do you yell at the driver this time? Do you honk your horn? Why or why not?

Now imagine that this is the same car – the same texting driver! – that you encountered earlier. Does this change your reaction in any way? Does this make you more or less likely to yell, and to honk?

1. Your familiarity with your context

When writing, it’s important to recognize how familiar are you with your context and be prepared to adjust your style accordingly. In ‘Anmol’s story’, a crucial factor in the miscommunication was how unfamiliar Anmol was with his new academic context, Langara College. Like any culture, community, or organization, the college has spoken and unspoken rules that Anmol was unaware of. Because Anmol was a new student and unfamiliar with a Canadian college’s norms and values, it was hard for him to make good communication choices.

If, like Anmol, you are in a new context – for example, if you are new to Canada, a brand new employee at work, or a first-semester college student, you can avoid communication missteps by paying close attention to the specific cultural norms of your new context, and specifically to the behaviours of those who have been there longer than you have, so that you can learn from their example and follow their lead. Most of us do this quite automatically when it comes to our style of dress: for example, if we work in a profession or company where business suits are worn to work, we quickly adjust to wearing business suits ourselves to avoid standing out in a negative way. Writing norms are no different: when writing in a new context, we should always make a strong effort to observe and study others’ style, tone, and level of formality, too, and follow their example as best we can when it is our turn to write or speak.

In ‘Anmol’s story,’ by paying attention to the friendly but formal emails and online posts of his Instructor, Anmol likely would have realized that a college context is perhaps more formal than other types of environments he had communicated in previously. Choosing to write to his Instructor in a less casual tone to better match the formal college setting would have helped Anmol avoid accidentally causing offence.

As you gain experience in a particular context such as a workplace or academic setting, make sure to notice the specific culture (norms, values and expectations) of your context and any special rules that apply in that setting.

If you are still unsure how to write a professional message in a new Canadian context even after careful observation, we suggest using a default professional writing style that uses a simple, direct approach, mid-level language that is neither too formal nor too informal, and that is brief and to the point. (We will cover all of this in detail in Chapter 3.)

2. Your familiarity with the topic or situation

One of the biggest annoyances of professional and academic communicators is having to respond to unnecessary emails and to answer questions that the sender should already know the answer to. A McKinsey analysis revealed that an average professional spends 28% of their workday, or about 2.6 hours per day, reading and answering emails (Plummer).

For instructors like Anmol’s, this happens frequently, often when students email them for information that has already been explained multiple times through multiple different channels, such as in class, in the syllabus or assignment guidelines, online, and in the course textbook. Imagine being asked for the same information again and again by dozens of people, when you have already taken the trouble to communicate that information as clearly as possible, in many ways as possible.  Like Anmol’s instructor, you too would likely become easily frustrated and annoyed!

Unfortunately, this doesn’t just happen with in academic contexts: it is a frequent complaint in professional workplaces too, as senders are often too busy or absent-minded to check to see if they can get their question answered elsewhere (or if it’s already been answered for them in a previous email!) before they send an email.

We should always pause to reflect on our familiarity with our topic and situation before we write and send a message, as this can help us determine the following:

• whether we know more about the topic, or have access to more information about it, than we initially think and should consult our knowledge and other sources first before hitting ‘send’

Ex. Anmol could have paused to review his course Brightspace announcements, homework handouts, course syllabus, previous emails, etc. before emailing his instructor

• where there are specific gaps in our knowledge about the topic.  This way, we can explain more clearly and in detail exactly what we already know or understand, and what we still are trying to learn or clarify.

Ex. Anmol could have written, ‘I am confused about the homework that is due this Sunday in CMNS 1114. Specifically, I understand that I need to complete the exercises from Chapter 2, but I can’t find the folder or area in Brightspace where I need to submit them, even though I tried my best to follow the instructions that were posted about the homework.’

• where we completely lack knowledge and don’t know how to get it. In these cases, it’s best to be honest and direct about what we don’t know, rather than pretending to know more than we do

Ex. Anmol could have written, ‘I am new to the college and I am feeling overwhelmed and confused by the homework instructions that we have been receiving, even though I am trying my best to understand them. Would it be possible to meet with you next week to discuss this in person?’

Ultimately, by reflecting on his familiarity with his context, topic, and situation, Anmol might have realised how little he understood about his new college context and what was expected of him as he completed his homework.  This knowledge would have helped Anmol communicate his sense of confusion more effectively and with a much lower chance of causing offence.

3. Your mental and emotional state

Because this is a professional writing textbook, it might seem odd or out of place to talk about our feelings and state of mind. Yet, anyone who has ever yelled at another driver or sent a text or email that went horribly wrong because they were hungry, frustrated, over-emotional, or over-tired can relate to the importance of emotional awareness in avoiding communication missteps.

Here, some basic wisdom applies: never send an important message or submit an assignment when you are too hungry, tired, angry, stressed, or otherwise in a negative emotional state to be sure that you aren’t communicating annoyance (or some other negative emotion) instead of your intended message. Of course, this requires both planning ahead – not waiting until the last possible moment to meet a deadline, for instance – and some emotional self-awareness.

When surveying your emotional state, it’s also helpful to separately consider

• how you are feeling / what emotions you are experiencing in general (for instance, are you hungry and irritable, or well fed and calm?)
• how you are feeling about the task, topic, or situation itself (are you dreading sending this email or assignment, or is it just another routine task?)
• how you are feeling about the person you are writing to (do you already like or dislike this person, or do you have no feelings about them one way or another?)

The goal is not to strip your messages of emotion or even negative emotion, necessarily, but instead to become aware of your emotions and how they are impacting the tone and content of your message. This way, you can gain thoughtful control of your feelings, rather than letting your feelings control you (and your message).

You might, for instance, decide that you do want to convey an impatient or urgent tone – but not an angry one – to the sensitive group member or employee who has routinely been late in submitting their part of a team project, if on reflection you decide that this will be the most effective way to achieve your purpose and help your group meet its deadlines.

In other situations, becoming aware of your emotions can help you understand why you are having difficulty completing a writing task. For example, if you are struggling to write an apology to someone you upset, or find yourself procrastinating to write an assignment or report you don’t really understand, examining your feelings will help you recognize and deal with the underlying causes of your writing struggles, and help you figure out how to overcome them (for example, by helping you realize that you need to ask for help and clarification before you can complete your assignment or report).

If, like many people, you struggle to identify and name your emotions, you can use a feelings chart like the ‘Feelings Wheel’ pictured above (and linked below) to help you do this.

4. Your sense of importance / urgency

As you were reflecting on ‘The Traffic Story’ example above, like me, you may have concluded that in the first part of the scenario, at 9:03am, you would have been more likely to want to honk or yell at the driver in front of you than you would have later, at 10:37am. Why is that?

This scenario is based on the true story of incidents that happened took place in Vancouver when I was on my way to breakfast with a friend. I confess: I did mutter some angry words into my windshield when the texting driver was in my way at 9:03am, before I’d had my breakfast and as I was running a little bit late.

I didn’t yell or become angry when the second driver was in my way at 10:37am, however. In fact, I barely noticed or commented on the driver who failed to notice the green light.

What was different? Aside from my hanger (hunger + anger), a key difference in the two almost identical scenarios was the sense of importance and urgency that I felt in each case. In the earlier scenario, my feeling of urgency was high: I was hungry, this oblivious person was standing between me and my food, and I was running late in a culture that values time and punctuality. In the later scenario, however, the urgency of time and need had been stripped from the situation, which produced a completely different reaction.

As with our emotions, in communication situations the key is to become aware of how important or urgent our message is to us so that we can convey this urgency clearly and thoughtfully. For example, in an important team assignment scenario, telling a group member who has been routinely missing submission deadlines that you would appreciate it if they could submit their work sometime soon would not communicate the same urgency and clarity as stating that you need them to submit their work by 10am tomorrow so that team can meet their 2pm deadline.

It’s also crucial to check that the urgency we feel about a situation matches the actual urgency of the situation, when viewed from the reader’s point of view.

In ‘Anmol’s story’, Anmol might have paused to ask himself whether the urgency and panic he expressed in his email to his instructor matched the actual urgency of the situation. Since he was asking about a homework task that was likely worth very little and assigned some time ago, it’s unlikely that his instructor would consider the situation as an urgent matter requiring her to drop other tasks and responsibilities to respond immediately. Additionally, if part of the problem was that Anmol had waited to start his homework until the last minute, the urgency he was feeling was created by his own choices, not by the instructor or the course requirements. In situations like this, which can occur to anyone in both workplace and academic contexts, it’s important that we take responsibility for our role in causing our predicament rather than putting the responsibility on our audience to help us solve a problem we have created. It’s still ok to ask for help, but when we do, it’s important not to expect an immediate response and to ask with additional care and respect for our audience’s time and effort. Getting the wording and tone of these kinds of requests just right can be very tricky, so we’ll discuss how to avoid creating an accidentally urgent or demanding tone in more detail in Chapter 3.