Course Description

The effective flow of information is the lifeline of a business. In this business writing course, participants gain a fundamental understanding of good writing for any context – the workplace and beyond. Starting with some simple strategies to clarify business objectives and audience needs, we study the principles of good writing structure and apply them to several everyday business documents. This class will help employees who communicate throughout the day to write effectively, reply to the steady stream of correspondence, and write reports, procedures, manuals, and proposals.


Audience

This business writing course is aimed at early or mid-career professionals who need to learn or improve their core skills in business writing. They might be those who are moving into managerial roles, people returning to the workforce after extended leave, or office managers wanting to adopt current best practices in their workplace.


Prerequisites

Students are assumed to have a basic proficiency in written English (at least a high school graduate’s level). Computers with MS Word will be used so participants should be familiar with the basic functions of a computer operating system such as navigating the environment using a mouse and keyboard.


Topics and Course Content

This business writing course is organized generally in the sequence of steps you would take to plan, write and review your daily business communications. Learning methods include open discussions, group exercises, and individual response to assessments.

  • Planning

    Understanding audience needs, confirming your objectives, and choosing the right level of formality before starting to write

  • Structure

    An overview of the structures that apply to almost any format (narrative, hierarchy or topic-based), followed by hands-on practice of some standard formats in the essential items of everyday business communication: emails and brief proposals

  • Flow

    Practicing the rules of good paragraph structure, with a topic sentence and strong linking techniques, and ensuring a distinctive call to action  Navigation Helping the reader scan for information, through features such as clear formatting, different heading levels, bullets, graphs and charts that replace dense and heavy text

  • Review

    An overview of good grammar and business writing styles, with an introduction to self-editing using the right techniques at different stages of the writing process


Learning Goals and Results

With special emphasis on electronic correspondence, after this business writing course, participants will gain a new confidence and clearer understanding of what is expected when writing different business documents. These include:

  • Writing for a specific context, audience, and purpose.
  • Choosing the right level of formality for that context.
  • Choosing the right structure (or template) for the task at hand.
  • Writing jargon-free communications that are clearer and more concise.
  • Self-checking for content, structure, expression and style

Time Investment

This class is 40 hours of classroom time taken in 4-hour sessions over the course of 10 consecutive weeks.

Please Note: Course content and time investment can also be customized to an individual company’s needs.


Employee Application Employer Application