“…However, the late 1970s introduced our first glimpse of a new direction in how scholars regarded and responded to negative messages and how to compose them. Some scholars began to question some of the accepted teachings on message organization (e.g., Locker, 1977Locker, , 1979Selzer, 1981;Suchan & Dulek, 1988), while others questioned the limited scope of textbook advice in its teaching of negative messages, in particular its sole focus on responding to customer complaints and claims instead of other types of negative news delivered in the workplace (Arnold & Soskis, 1977). By the 1980s, these initial dissenting voices were joined by others as business communication scholars began to question in earnest the accepted business writing conventions and principles propounded by business writing experts in existing textbooks.…”