What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Written Communication

Communication, a skill that everyone has, but not everyone excels in it. There are multiple ways we communicate in, verbal, written, body language, facial expressions etc. Amazingly, once it was seen on a public transport that a deaf and mute person was communicating on her phone! One may ask, how? Using sign language on Skype! Of all these ways the most common are verbal and written. While some people are excellent at expressing themselves verbally, it can be observed that others do it well in writing while not being so good verbally, and vice versa. We shall discuss here the distinct advantages and perceived values of both verbal and written forms and then compare between them.

Verbal communication if observed, can be called a very complex form of communication. This can be backed by the fact that verbal communication brings along with it facial expressions, body language, the volume and tone of the speech and eye contact. All these things are

We can express ourselves in a fuller way when it comes to verbal, as we can add our expressions and gestures to our speech but many a times when things get complicated we do tend to turn to written communications. If there are things we do not feel comfortable to ‘talk’ about, we find it easier to convey our thoughts through a text message or an e-mail. The article “Difference Between Oral and Written Communication” (2012) emphasises that understanding of written communication requires literacy and if at first it is incomprehensible, the level of understanding can be increased by reading the text repeatedly which, with oral communication is not possible. Also that to make corrections after a speech has been made are not possible or cannot be reversed while, it is possible to rewrite and edit a message in the case of written communication. The article further states, “Oral communication is remembered much less than written