Unit 4 Summaries, notes, reports 4.1 Punctuation Read the following text. Decide where to add punctuation and to start new paragraphs. You’ll also need to add some Capital Letters. To departmental manger from human resources manager date 15 September subject overseas trainee placement scheme as requested I enclose a copy of the scheduled program for the trainee initiation week it will be held from 23 October to 27 October following your secretary’s telephone call I have set aside a session for you to speak to the participants I have scheduled this for Monday 23 October starting at 3 00 pm I am now completing the final arrangements for the week accordingly I would be grateful if you could confirm that the proposed time on Monday will be convenient for you in addition I would also appreciate receiving any comments you may have on the program by Friday of this week if possible.   4.2 Summarizing Listening & speaking A. Listen to the recording. In Conversation 1 a woman talks about an experience she had, and in Conversation 2 you will hear three people talking. Conversation 1 1 How do you think the person feels in this recording? Why do you think this is the case? 2 Pause the recording when you hear the <beep> tone. 3 Summarize out loud briefly what happened. 4 restart the recording and see if the spoken summary is close to your own or not. 5 What other points would you add? Conversation 2 1 In this recording, what sort of mood would you say the people are in? What is the reason for this? 2 Pause the recording when you hear the <beep> tone. 3 Summarize out loud briefly what happened. 4 Restart the recording and see if the spoken summary is close to your own or not. B Conversations 3 and 4 Now listen to two more conversations. When you hear the <beep> tone, stop the recording and write a short summary of each conversation using your own words. When you look at the Answer Key, remember there is no “best version” of a summary. Conversation 3 Conversation 4 4.3 Getting it down on paper Vocabulary Fill the gaps with suitable words from the list. brief check recipient summarize submit apostrophe classify memorandum paragraphs period draft colon accurate executive   1. Put the name of the.... at the top of the memo . . . 2. When it is finished send or... the report to the person, who asks for it. 3. When you take a message try to keep it... 4. A top manager is an... of the company. 5. Only... the main points of a message. 6. First.... or put in a particular order the things you want to sag before you start. 7. Make a first... of anything you write and then correct it. 8. ... should only contain one main idea. 9. The ... is a punctuation mark with two dots. 10. Remember to ... your spelling before you type the report. 11. The punctuation mark hat looks like a ‘flying comma’ is called the.... 12. When you report facts make Sure you are... 13. A letter used inside a firm is called a ... 14. ... is another word for full stop. 15. A ... is something that gets sent around to many people. 4.4 Dealing with a report Reading A. The paragraphs of Anita Fuchsberger’s report got mixed up on the word-processor and they were not numbered. Numbers the correct order you think they should be in. One is done for you as an example. MEMO From: Anita Fuchsberger To: Felicitas Zapp Quarterly Report on Office Furniture (3) The first point to stress is that following the acquisition of the Relax Group and J.S.Moretti S.p.A.Last year, Relaxo International, the renamed division, experienced a year of consolidation and profit growth this year. ( ) Relaxo Systems furniture in the UK continued its profitable growth pattern. In marketing terms, the major events include extensions to the System MLOO screen bead furniture range which is proving such a popular product with major British companies. New storage products were also introduced in October. Alhambra, a Spanish disking range, was launched in the UK for the front office furniture market. It was well received and projected sales for next year are encouraging. ( ) Mumbles Relax de Espana showed real profit improvement following the factory investments which have led to more cost-effective manufacture. The order book increased significantly during the year, despite the lack of any real improvement in the business climate in Spain. This was due to the introduction of new disking and storage products, aided by key changes to the sales management structure. ( ) I must apologize for the late submission of my report, but the delay was partly connected with my visit to our Spanish subsidiary in San Sebastian. I had to step in at the last moment for the Sales Manager, who unfortunately suffered a car accident. ( ) Overall, the past year has been a favorable one for the Relaxo Group in all three European regions. This has been the case despite the variable conditions from country to country. The prospects for the coming years look favorable on the whole, and only the situation in the USA may give some cause for concern. ( ) At the same time marketing activity was strengthened by the opening of new showrooms for Relaxo at the new International sigh Canter in New York City and for Moretti S.p.A. in the office and factory complex just outside Milan. We also had good production results to show in our three major European regions: the Iberian Peninsula, Northern Europe and the British Isles. ( ) Here are the results of my analysis of the international performance of Relaxo International together with some predictions for the future development of the business furniture market. ( ) The Relaxo companies in Europe traded exceptionally well during the year, and new products were introduced to extend the System 99 executive seating range. The market conditions in Germany and Holland were very favorable and Relaxo looks able to take further advantage of this with systems furniture to be launched in these countries in the next couple of years. The Swiss company continues to develop its own markets and last year significantly increased its activity in southern Europe. However, market conditions in the USA were not so favorable for Relaxo Incorporated, but the opening of the showroom in New York should indicate a return to growth in the USA in coming years. B. Read the report again and decides which of the statements are true of false: 1. Anita Fuchsberger wishes she had not had to take the place of the Sales Manager in San Sebastian. 2. Anita Fuchsberger reports on the development of the business furniture market in the past few years. 3. The newly restructured company had a good year. 4. Production facilities were improved in America and Italy. 5. There were more orders in Spain during the year. 6. The success of the Spanish subsidiary was connected to the change in the business climate. 7. European trade developments helped Relaxo companies to expand the number of new products they were able to sell. 8. Anita Fuchs Berger is not sure whether it will be an advantage to introduce new products in the next few years. 9. Relaxo Incorporated are likely to do less well in the USA in the future than they have this year. 10. The most important market development for the UK-based company was the introduction of the Alhambra disking range. 4.5 Rule Number One: Clear that desk Reading Read this article and then fill each gap below with one word. RULE NUMBER ONE: CLEAR THAT DESK If you desk is piled high with letters faxes, forms, memos, reports print-outs and sticky-backed message slips, you might believe all this paperwork is a sign of how busy you are. But according to Declan Treacy, cluttered desks lead to lost information, distractions, missed opportunities, high stress and not a little procrastination’s founded and runs the Clear Your Desk Organization and organists the annual International Clear Your Desk Day which this year is being held n April 24. His arguments for uncluttered desks are strong. “We pile between 300 and 500 pieces of paper on the desk at any one time, a load equivalent to a 40-hour backlog of work. With 45 minutes a day wasted on frustrating searches for lost paperwork on and around the desk, it is unfortunate that the cluttered desk is the accepted norm in most organizations,” he says. Treacy holds seminars to help companies organize their own Clear Your Desk days, when everyone from the senior managers to secretaries learn how to tackle paperwork more effectively. Paper has become the foundation on which our organizations are built and at the beginning of the 1990s office workers around the world were using more than 15 million miles of paper every day. Over two billion business litters are posted daily worldwide. In the US, companies have over 300 billion pies of paper on file. While a large proportion of this paperwork is important, we have reached a situation where most organisations,both public and private, are suffocating under mountains of unwanted paper. The average British worker hoards 40 hours of unfinished paperwork at any one time; each piece of paper on the desk will distract us up to five times a day; 68 per cent of office workers admit to habitually handling paperwork several times before deciding what to do with it; worldwide, computer printers produce over two and a half million pieces of paper every minute; 60 million photocopies are made every hour; 30 billion faxes are sent every year; and we hoard an average 20,000 pieces of paper in the office. So what is someone to do if they have what looks like the EU paper mountain on their desk? Dump it in the bin? Well, yes, says Treacy. Or rather, he suggests following four simple rules, and dumping the stuff is number four. Rule number three is file it. Number tow suggests passing it to someone else; number one is the rule no one will like: act on it. What you shouldn’t do is add to the pile of paper that’s already there, says Treacy: “Eighty per cent of all paperwork is eventually discarded, but it causes an awful lot of trouble before that happens. Unfortunately, most executives believe the myth that an empty desk is the sign of an unproductive mind. How wrong can you be? Companies cannot afford to let people work from cluttered desks. Hours of valuable time are wasted in searching for vital pieces of paper, and in being distracted by the constant stream of faxes, memos and reports which land in our in-trays when we should be devoting time to more important work.” And what is Tracy’s desk like? Perfectly clear, of course. Susan Paper （from Intercity Magazine） 1. According to Declan Treacy, an untidy desk is ..............a sign of a busy person at work. The best kind of desk is a .............. one. 2. International Clear Your Desk Day is held every .......... 3. Office workers waste ........ minutes a day looking for documents. 4. In most businesses an ........ desk is considered perfectly acceptable. 5. It would take the average British worker ........hours to clear his or her desk of paperwork. 6. 21/2 million pieces of paper are printed by computers every ........and 60 million photocopies are made every ....... 7. Treacy’s four rules for clearing your desk of papers are: (1) .................................... on it. (2) ..................................... it on to someone else. (3) .......................................it. (4) .......................................it a away. References 4.1 Punctuation To: Departmental Manager From: Human Resources Manager Date: 15 September Subject: Overseas Trainee Placement Scheme As requested, I enclose a copy of the scheduled programmed for the trainee initiation week, it will be held from 23 October to 27 October. Following your secretary’s telephone call, I have set aside a session for you to speak to the participants. I have scheduled this for Monday 23 October, starting at 3.00 pm. I am now completing the final arrangements for the week. Accordingly, I would be grateful if you could confirm that the proposed time on Monday will be convenient for you. In addition, I would also appreciate receiving any comments you may have on the program by Friday of this week, if possible. 4.2 Summarizing A. In the first conversation the woman feels disappointed because it wasn’t her fault she didn’t get the job. In the second conversation the people are in happy mood because the sales contract has been signed. Transcript Conversation 1 Woman: well, I came in the front door of this great big office building and there was this huge plant or a tree, I …… I don’t know what it was. It was just being delivered off a very large lorry. I could hardly get through the main door. So, the doorman and receptionist were extremely busy. It took about ten minutes before I finally found out where the interview was and where it was supposed to be taking lace and all that. So, I went in the lift. You know it was one of those gigantic modern steel-plated affairs. I …… I pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. There was another girl in there and man with a toolbox or something. Anyway, the lift stopped and the man got out and do you know what happened? The lift started to move and then stopped between the eleventh and twelfth floors. Fortunately the girl in the lift with me said they’d been having a lot of trouble with the lift and there was no need to panic. She pressed one of the buttons and spoke to this man called Joe and explained the lift had got stuck. She was incredibly cool. Anyway, after what seemed ages to me, it must have been about, oh ten minutes, the lift slowly moved up to the twelfth floor. And when the door opened, there was a man standing there. It was the man who’d just got out of the lift. By that time, of course, I was extremely late for the interview. So I ran up the stairs after I’d found them. And that took some time. Well, as you can imagine, things didn’t get off to a good start. I explained everything, but in the end I didn’t get the job. They said they wanted someone with a lot of experience with using data processing systems. But still believe it was because I’d got there so late. You know, first impressions and all that… Summary of Conversation 1 The woman was late getting to the job interview. She thinks this is the reason why she didn’t get the job. Conversation 2 First woman: Well done, John! Terrific news. If anyone was going to do it was going to be you. Second woman: Yes, we all said it, you know. There was no one else in the department who could have managed it in such record time. First woman: Yes, when did you first visit them? Man: Oh, about the beginning of March, I think it was. Second woman: Gosh, it’s only the 5th of just, now. Goodness me, I must congratulate you, once again. I never thought we’d be sitting around so soon and celebrating. First woman: John, you really are a genius! Man: Well, it’s not just me. I mean the whole local sales force has to take some of the credit. Second woman: But you got them to sign on the bottom line, and that’s the important thing. Summary of Conversation 2 The two women are congratulating the man on signing a sales contract with a client in a very short period of time. B Summary of Conversation 3 Samantha’s colleague seems to think she’s lamington leave her job. Summary of Conversation 4 The two colleagues are discussing whether they can make the delivery to Transco or whether IBO will have to wait. They decide to deliver to Transco first. The spare drives will be able to make the delivery. Transcript Conversation 3 Man: What’s the matter with Samantha these days? Woman: Why do you ask? Man: Well, she wash’s at the meeting about the pay rise. Woman: That’s right, do you think she’s getting restless? Man: Well, she did tell me about her fiancé wanting to move away from town. Woman: But so what? That might mot last. Woman: But so what? That might not last. Man: True, but I saw her studying the jobs vacant page last week in a coffee break. Conversation 4 Man: look, we can get the Transco stuff out next Thursday. Send them a telex. Woman: but we just sent one, telling them the shipment would but sent out today. Man: yeah, yeah, I know, but the situation has changed now, hash’s it? Woman: perhaps. Man: what do you mean, perhaps? Woman: maybe we can still get Transco’s stuff out tomorrow, if the lorry is back from the As ado run. Man: yes, but the drivers need some rest. I mean, you know, they’ll have been out delivering for three days non-stop. You can’t send them out again tomorrow. No. Send out a telex, as I said. I mean it would have been all right, but we’ve got to service IBO first. Their order has preference, you know. Woman: but I think IBO can wait, too, surely. They said they were holding up production for a week. Man: I know, but their order is all packed up and ready to go. Woman: but the Asado drivers can still rest and we’ll send out the spare team. No problem. Man: yes, sure. Look, they’ll be glad of the overtime and travel bonus. And we’ll have the order there on time, just the same. And the day after tomorrow, we’ll send the other team out again. Man: OK. Woman: they can do the IBO run, and a few other things I’ve got lined up in my in-tray here. 4.3 Getting it down on paper 1. recipient 2. submit 3. brief 4. executive 5. summarize 6. classify 7. draft 8. paragraphs 9. colon 10. check 11. apostrophe 12. accurate 13. memorandum 14. period 4.4 Dealing with a report reading A The correct order of the paragraphs: 3 7 5 1 8 4 2 6 B True: 1 3 5 7 False: 2 4 6 8 9 10 4.5 Rule number one: clear that desk 1. not clear 2. year 3. 45 4. untidy 5. 40 6. minute hour 7. Act Pass File Throw