Writing for Business Success/Effective business writing/Optional resources

In this learning pathway, you have learnt about the principles of good writing and explored techniques for writing clearly and effectively. However, opportunities to improve your writing skills do not end with this course!

On this page, we provide links to some additional, optional resources which will help you improve your writing skills. The content will not be directly assessed in this course and is not included in the recommended learning hours. However, the resources do contain a lot of useful advice and examples of how to improve your writing, which you may find helpful if you plan to complete the assessment in this course, and for writing in any business context.

Readings

• Chapter 4.2: How is writing learned? in Saylor Academy's Business Communication for Success gives advice on developing your writing skills through experience, effort, critical thinking, and targeted practice.

• Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a free online collection of resources to help with writing projects. The site map shows the full list of available resources. For example, for advice on writing more concisely and effectively, see:
  • Concision
  • Eliminating words
  • Changing phrases

Videos

ProsWrite.com writing tutorial videos give detailed guidance on effective writing styles and techniques. They also include exercises that you can do. We include links to a selection of them below.

Note that the advice given in this series of videos reflects the expectations of Western audiences. Always remember to find out what is appropriate for the particular country and/or culture that you are working within.

• Purposes for writing at work emphasises the importance of understanding the purpose of your business communication. It says that all business writing can be classified into one of four purposes: valuing, consulting, informing, and directing.
• Informative prose describes six strategies for informative writing in the context of developing a business plan to address audience needs effectively.
• Persuasive prose explains how to increase audience readiness to accept messages by applying the three elements of persuasion – the writer’s claim, convincing evidence for the claim, and effective interpretation of the evidence.
• Tone explains how to manage tone in business messages to convey a positive, professional attitude.
• Conciseness explains how to achieve conciseness in business writing by replacing empty 'filler' words with specific, informative verbs and nouns to emphasise your message.
• Format presents three simple formatting guidelines to make it easier for audiences to understand your business messages: page layout, typography, and lists.
• Graphics discusses three main criteria for graphics choices in relation to your communication purpose and context.
• Placement of the bottom line describes where to best place your key point in business documents to increase audience readiness to accept your message.