Business Writing Course 2

Business Communication. Sharpen your communication skills.

COVID-19 update: arrangement of our courses

We are now delivering courses both online and in-person. Please check the delivery format for each class before you enrol.

Please note that course materials for all classes (excluding prescribed textbooks) are shared electronically within 48 hours of a course starting. Printing is not available.

As professionals become more senior in their careers, their ability to lead teams and influence others becomes increasingly important. Persuasive writing is the primary vehicle of influencers, given that there are fewer opportunities for most professionals to persuade in person. This advanced business writing course builds on the principles covered in Business Writing Course 1, while adding techniques suited to more advanced writing genres and using more advanced reasoning techniques.

Aims

This course aims to give you the tools to present logical high-level arguments, support your proposals with a range of evidence, and critically review your own work and that written by others using established guidelines for logic and correctness.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• demonstrate greater confidence and knowledge when it comes to writing business documents that have to persuade a demanding reader
• demonstrate an ability to critique texts
• draw conclusions based on evidence
• propose and defend a persuasive argument in writing
• adopt a writing tone that’s businesslike but not over formal
• review written work following a four-step process
• correct the five most common grammatical errors.

Content

This course has a stronger emphasis on persuasion and evidence compared to the Business Writing 1 Course, which focuses on everyday communications and correspondence.

Toolkit

We begin with a 30-minute refresh of some core techniques covered in Business Writing 1, to ensure you start from the same level of understanding.

Persuasion essentials

We look at the essentials of persuasive business writing, and begin to set up our argument before applying it to a choice of business scenarios. Examples might be requesting extra team resources from management, recruiting team members to spearhead a demanding new initiative, and presenting a rationale to management to invest in a new initiative.

Critiquing texts and drawing conclusions

Here we explore the grouping and summarising techniques needed to distil the key points from multiple sources, such as data sets, anecdotal evidence and technical literature. We also discuss good research habits to maintain.

Putting it all together

We now apply the morning’s learnings to your preferred writing format, whether a proposal, presentation or business case. We also look at the subtle differences in tone that characterise each genre.

Grammar and style

We look at some common grammatical mistakes, and how to fix these. In this session, we focus on sentence phrases and clauses as being the most important elements to control for advanced business writers.

Review process

Essential steps to take when reviewing your own or someone else’s text.

Intended audience

Aimed at mid-career professionals and team leaders who deal with a range of stakeholders, usually to persuade them to take a sophisticated course of action. It is also useful for those who need to guide their team members' writing.

Prerequisites

You do not need to attend Business Writing 1 first, but you should understand some principles of good writing to get the most out of this course. If you already start your writing with a message statement, have a system for organising information, understand sentence grammar, and know why active verbs are generally better than passive, you will be able to follow the workshop content quite comfortably.

Delivery style

You will learn through a variety of methods including:

• open discussions
• group exercises
• individual response to mini quizzes.

Materials

A course workbook containing instructions, best practice examples, exercises and note-taking space.

Recommended reading

Australian Government 2002, Style Manual, John Wiley & Sons, Australia.

James, N 2007, Writing at Work: how to write clearly, effectively and professionally, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.

Seely, J 2005, Oxford Guide to Effective Writing and Speaking, Oxford University Press.

Strunk, W & White, E B 1918, The Elements of Style, Harcourt, USA.