Business Writing Course: Essentials

Business Communication. Sharpen your communication skills.

COVID-19 update: arrangement of our courses

We are now delivering courses online and in-person. Please check the delivery format of each class before enrolling.

Please note that course materials (excluding prescribed texts) are shared electronically within 48 hours of course commencement. Printing is not available.

This essentials business writing course covers a range of skills designed to resolve typical workplace writing challenges. These include dealing with high volumes of writing, addressing audience needs effectively, and clarifying meaning with correct grammar and consistent style.

Starting with frameworks that clarify your objectives and audience needs, we then explore writing structures that can be applied to any business document. You’ll then apply these principles to two critical business writing tasks: emails and short summaries.

The course also covers a range of other topics, all essential to good workplace communications. These include tact, tone, paragraph structure, jargon, sentence grammar, punctuation and self-editing.

Fast-paced and fun, it busts a number of myths about business communication – for example, that big words make the writer sound smarter. You will participate in lively discussions throughout the day and receive feedback on the work you write in class.

This hands-on course is a useful lead-in to the more advanced problem-solving techniques covered in the Business Writing Course: Masterclass, or the specialist report-writing skills covered in Effective Business Report Writing. It can be taken on its own or in conjunction with either course.

Aims

This course aims to provide you with the tools to write clearly and concisely, regardless of your industry or role. It also covers the latest conventions in grammar, style, formatting and other systems that govern good writing.

Outcomes

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

• cross-check that your writing addresses the purpose and audience correctly
• choose the right structure for the task at hand
• write clear and concise, jargon-free communications
• choose the right level of formality for that context
• edit your text for the five essential elements of good writing style.

Content

This course is organised roughly in the sequence of steps you would take to plan, write and review your daily business communications.

Planning

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

Structure

An overview of the three structures that apply to almost any format (narrative, hierarchy or topic-based), followed by hands-on practice of some standard formats in two essential business scenarios: emails and short proposals.

Flow

Practicing the rules of good paragraphing, with a topic sentence and strong linking techniques, and ensuring an unmistakable call to action at the end.

Navigation

Helping your reader scan for information, through features such as clear formatting, different heading levels, graphs and charts that replace data-heavy text, bulleted lists and more.

Review

An overview of good grammar and business writing style, plus a basic introduction to the stages of review.

Intended audience

Aimed at early or mid-career professionals who need to learn or improve their core skills in business writing. They might be technical staff moving into managerial roles, people returning to the workforce after extended leave, or office managers wanting to adopt current best practice in their workplace.

Prerequisites

This course assumes a basic proficiency in written English, such as Year 12 English. If you are a non-native English speaker, you may also want to consider our English language courses in various specific and general topics.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

You will learn through a variety of methods including open discussions, group exercises and individual response to mini tests.