IT 510

Systems Analysis and Design, Tenth Edition
End of Chapter Solutions. PART A Communication Tools
Toolkit Exercises s
Questions
1. What is a corporate culture, and why is it important? Describe the culture at a business
where you have been employed.
A corporate culture is the set of beliefs, rules, traditions, values, and attitudes that define a
company and influence its way of doing business. To be successful, a systems analyst must
understand, and work within, the corporate culture. For example, if you speak to a group
in a company that encourages a highly participative style, you might want to solicit
feedback, invite audience comments, or conduct a poll during your presentation. Similarly,
if the organization or group is very formal, or very informal, you might want to adjust your
style accordingly. (Page 565)
2. Mention five specific techniques you can use to improve your written documents.
As the Toolkit suggests, students who have not taken a writing course should consider
doing so. The textbook offers 10 specific suggestions for better-written documents, as
follows:
a. Know your audience. If you are writing for nontechnical readers, use terms that
readers will understand.
b. Use the active voice whenever possible. For example, the active voice sentence “Tom
designed the system,” is better than, “The system was designed by Tom,” which is an
example of the passive voice.
c. Keep your writing concise and well organized. Use one paragraph to convey a single
idea.
d. Use an appropriate style. For example, use a conversational tone in informal
documents and a business tone in formal documents.
e. Use lists. When you must enumerate a number of subtopics related to the same topic,
lists are an organized way to present them.
f. Use short, easy-to-understand words. Your objective is not to impress your audience
with the size of your vocabulary.
g. Avoid repeating the same word too often. Use a thesaurus to locate synonyms for
frequently repeated words. Many word processing programs include a thesaurus and
other tools to help you write better.
h. Check your spelling. You can use the spell checker in your word processing program to
check your spelling, but remember that a spell checker is a tool that identifies only
words that do not appear in the program’s dictionary. For example, a spell checker will
not identify instances when you use the word “their,” instead of the word “there.”
i. Check your grammar. Most word processing programs include a grammar checker,
which is a tool that can detect usage problems and offer suggestions. When you use a
grammar checker, you can set various options to match the level and style of the
writing and to highlight or ignore certain types of usage. For example, you can set the
grammar checker in Microsoft Word to check grammar rules only, or you can configure
it to check writing style, including gender-specific words, sentence fragments, and
passive sentences
j. Review your work carefully. Then double-check it for spelling, grammatical, and
typographical mistakes. If possible, ask a colleague to proofread your work and
suggest. (Pages 565-566)
3. What techniques can help e-mail communications? Provide specific examples.
Students should realize that most companies now use e-mail as the standard form of written
correspondence. E-mail usually is less formal than other written communication, but good
grammar, spelling, and clear writing always are important. Remind students that things
said might be forgotten in a short time, but things written — with our name on them —
might be around for a long, long, time.
Although e-mail usually is more conversational, point out that e-mail messages often are
forwarded to other recipients or groups, and they are as important as any other form of
written communication. If you are a frequent e-mail user, you can create distribution lists
that include names of recipients and their e-mail addresses. Many e-mail programs use
formatting features such as bold, italic, and underlining, and spell check your messages
before you send them. (Pages 566-567)
4. Create a one-page document with at least five grammatical errors. Then run the Microsoft
Word grammar checker and describe the results.
This should be easy and fun. If students need some examples to get started, you can suggest
common errors such as:
 Variations of to, too, and two
 Confusion between that and which
 Misuse of its and it’s
 Improper use of their and there (Page 566)
5. When preparing an oral presentation, what six tasks should you perform?
When preparing an oral presentation, you must define the audience, define the objectives
for your presentation, organize the presentation, define any technical terms you will use,
and prepare your presentation aids. After you have done these things, you must practice,
practice, and practice some more. (Page 572-573)
6. When you organize a presentation, what three stages do you plan?
You should plan your presentation in three stages: an introduction to let the audience know
who you are and the purpose of the presentation; the delivery of the information in a
logical, understandable manner; and a summation that recaps the main points and asks for
questions. (Page 573)