E-mail addresses are very interesting. At first glance, they are not properly understood to novice, but these short sets of numbers, letters, and symbols can assure their owners of e-mail from anywhere in the world. The most important symbol in an e-mail address is the @ sign, which separates the personal user's identification (user ID) on the left, from the domain, or machine address, on the right. Here's an example of e-mail address:
ahbsc@cuatvm.cuat.edu
The part to the left of the @ is a personel user ID (AHBSC), which stands for Alan H. Brown, Somewhere College. The part immediately after the @ shows the machine. Many universities use VM machine (VM = virtual machine), so the machine address is CUATVM, which means "City University of Any-Town Virtual Machine". Then there is a dot to separate
the different "domains" or "subdomains" within the address. After thedot, we have the name of the institution, City University of Any-Town (CUAT), andfinally we have the domain EDU which stands for "education".
Domains can be:
EDU — for education
GOV — for government
COM — for commercial
MIL — for military
NET — for Internet or related network service provider
ORG — for organisation, probably non-profit.
ComputerServe addresses are all @cornpuserve.com.
There are searching servers:
www.yahoo.com
www.infoseek.com — to search different information
www.altavista.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/
www.rambler.ru — to search essays
www.muzic.ru —for searching music
Exercise 7. Complete the sentences according to the text:
1. Important documents or valuable items can be sent by…
2. A fax is…which is transmitted by….
3. Faxes are printed on…
4. …. is a way of sending messages between computers. The message appears on … and can be …...
5. …can be a legally binding document.
6. International mail within a company or between branches of the same firm is usually in the form of…
7. …separates the personal user's identification (user ID) on the left, from the domain, or machine address, on the right.
8. the domain EDU stands for…
Exercise 8. Answer the questions:
1. How must a good business letter look like? Why are important documents often sent by courier?
2. A fax is not usually a legally binding document. What is the reason?
3. What is Skype?
4. What are the peculiarities of telex?
5. What does the style of memos depend on? How do they look like?
6. What does an average e-mail address consist of?
7. What domains are used in e-mail addresses? What do they show?
8. What are the purposes of searching services?
V. Writing
Exercise 9. Write an e-mail to your business partner. Arrange a meeting in your office. Express the aim of the meeting.
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VI. Listening
Exercise 11. Listen to the text:
Telephone techniques
ü Identify yourself by giving your name and your position in the company.
ü Make sure you're talking to the right person.
ü Say right away you're calling about. Be brief, and don't waste time.
ü If it's a bad line, say that you'll call back at once. Then start the call again.
ü Speak slowly and clearly, but in a friendly voice. Smile while you're speaking. Your listener can 'hear' your smile.
ü Don't try to be funny — you may be misunderstood.
ü Don't use technical terms or abbreviation, because the other person may not understand these as well as you do.
ü Give important information, like figures, names, quantities, dates and so on, slowly and carefully.
ü Don't interrupt the other person even if you think you know what he or she is going to say, let them finish what they want to say.
ü Don't phone during the other person's lunch hour — find out what time it is in the other country before you call.
ü Note down all the important information you're given by the other person.
ü Send a following-up fax or letter to confirm any important details (especially prices and numbers), so that you both have a written record of them.
Exercise 12. Work in pairs. Make the lists of DOs and DON`Ts of a good telephone conversation. Add some points to your lists. Use the information you have listened to.
VII. Discussion
Exercise 13. Discuss the following issues with your group-mates:
1. Some people suffer from the “telephone conversations fear”. How can this affect business?
2. The best means of business communication (e-mail, telephone, written correspondence, skype or maybe personal talk). Give your reasons, advantages and disadvantages of each.
UNIT 3
MY SPECIALITY
I. Language
