Business Communication Today, 12th Edition

The following sections within various chapters are all new, revised with new material, or streamlined for more efficient coverage:
·       Communicating as a Professional (in Chapter 1)
·       The Art of Professionalism: Maintaining a Confident, Positive Outline (highlight box in Chapter 1)
·       Technologies for Collaborative Writing (in Chapter 2)
·       Business Etiquette in the Workplace (in Chapter 2)
·       Business Etiquette in Social Settings (in Chapter 2)
·       Business Etiquette Online (in Chapter 2)
·       Communication Close-Up at Ernst & Young (in Chapter 3)
·       Gender Differences (in Chapter 3)
·       The Art of Professionalism: Being Dependable and Accountable (highlight box in Chapter 5)
·       Communication Close-up at the U.S. Small Business Administration (in Chapter 7)
·       Writing Email Messages (use of emoticons) (in Chapter 7)
·       Website Content (in Chapter 7)
·       The Art of Professionalism: Striving to Excel (highlight box in Chapter 7)
·       Information and Media Sharing Sites (in Chapter 8)
·       Media Curation Sites (in Chapter 8)
·       Microblogging (in Chapter 8)
·       Infographics (in Chapter 9)
·       Producing Business Videos (in Chapter 9)
·       Providing Recommendations and References (in Chapter 10)
·       Fostering Goodwill (in Chapter 10)
·       Offering Condolences (in Chapter 10)
·       Continuing with a Clear Statement of the Bad News (in Chapter 11; revised coverage of using conditionals)
·       Responding to Negative Information in a Social Media Environment (in Chapter 11)
·       Refusing Social Networking Recommendation Requests (in Chapter 11)
·       Giving Negative Performance Reviews (in Chapter 11)
·       Developing Marketing and Sales Messages (in Chapter 12; entire section compressed to allow more room for coverage of persuasive business messages)
·       Drafting Report Content (in Chapter 15)
·       Drafting Proposal Content (in Chapter 15)
·       Completing Reports and Proposals (in Chapter 15)
·       Advantages and Disadvantages of Structured Slides (in Chapter 17)
·       Advantages and Disadvantages of Free-Form Slides(in Chapter 17)
·       Designing Effective Slides (in Chapter 17)
·       Designing Slides Around a Key Visual (in Chapter 17)
·       The Art of Professionalism: Being a Team Player (highlight box in Chapter 17)
·       Finding the Ideal Opportunity in Today’s Job Market (in Chapter 18)
·       Considering Photos, Videos, Presentations, and Infographics (in Chapter 18)
·       Planning Your Résumé (in Chapter 18)
·       Motivating Action (in Chapter 19, regarding application letters)
·       Follow-Up Messages (in Chapter 19, formerly titled Thank You Messages)

A unique section on producing business video (Chapter 9 Visual Media). More and more employees are now expected to be able to do basic video work for training courses, product demos, video news releases, customer service, and other purposes. This new section guides students through pre-production, production, and post-production, with simple hands-on advice at each stage.

Increased coverage of social media and infographics . Beyond the research and presentation of new ideas and tools in our textbooks, Bovee and Thill are among the most active users of social media in the entire field of business communication.  Chapter 7 from the previous edition (Crafting Messages for Electronic Media) has been split into two chapters: Chapter 7 (Electronic Media) and Chapter 8 (Social Media).

This chapter also includes expanded coverage of infographics.

Streamlined content. To maintain the same 19-chapter length as the previous edition, the three-chapter part on report writing has been compressed to two chapters. Chapter 14 (Planning Reports and Proposals) is essentially the same as in the previous edition, but the separate chapters on writing and completing reports have been merged into a single, streamlined Chapter 15 (Writing and Completing Reports and Proposals). The authors also rigorously edited the entire book to reduce the word count, so the twelfth edition is even shorter than the eleventh.

The twelfth edition offers nearly 80 new figures , including many annotated model documents and a number of new before/after pairs that demonstrate how to fix specific problem areas in a message.