Actively Learning About Readers: Audience Modelling in Business Writing    

The advantages of peer feedback in business writing classes are clear. Students receive more appraisals of their writing than any single lecturer can ever realistically deliver. Also, the feedback comes from different perspectives and sometimes carries extra credibility coming from fellow students. Students gain from giving one another feedback as well. It is certainly learning by doing. Critiquing the work of colleagues raises awareness of the many ways to approach a given task and demands skills of analysis and attention to detail. Delivering feedback also requires tact and the ability to look for positives to commend as well as areas to improve. Reviewing written documents is a skill that students will certainly use in their future work lives. However, many of us have experienced problems with peer reviewing. Students hesitate to criticise their friends and prefer praising in a general way rather than suggesting improvements, which requires confidence.

Holst-Larkin, Jane. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Audience Analysis

Breaking Professional Boundaries: What the MacCrate Report on Lawyering Skills and Values Means for TPC Programs    

In 1992, the American Bar Association released the MacCrate Report, which listed the ten skills and four professional values that all attorneys need and critiqued law schools and state bars for not doing enough to teach and encourage the development of these skills and values. In response, law schools have significantly increased the skills-based components in their curricula, and most state bar exams now include a performance test. Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) programs already provide substantial instruction in all of the skills and values described in the MacCrate Report; further, an education in TPC prepares graduates to excel in law school and on the bar exam. This knowledge offers opportunities for growth if educators, administrators, and scholars take steps to encourage students to consider not only writing for but also joining in the legal profession.

Todd, Jeff. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Legal>Business Communication

Building Context: Using Activity Theory to Teach About Genre in Multi-Major Professional Communication Courses    

Instructors in multi-major professional communication courses are asked to teach students a variety of workplace genres. However, teaching genres apart from their contexts may not result in transfer of knowledge from school to workplace settings. We propose teaching students to research genre use via activity theory as a way of encouraging transfer. We outline theory and research relevant to teaching genre and provide results from a study using activity theory to teach genre in two different professional communication courses.

Kain, Donna and Elizabeth Wardle. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Genre

Change Agents or Followers: Analyzing Genres in the Business Writing Classroom  

Asking business students to perform a rhetorical analysis of generic conventions may help students gain the confidence to modify those conventions. Research shows that while generic conventions impose constraints, experienced writers also learn they have the agency to modify those conventions to meet the exigency of the rhetorical situation. The article reviews both traditional conceptions of the nature of genre as well as recent research, and describes an assignment which uses genre analysis as a means of teaching students the social nature of generic structures.

Amidon, Stevens R. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Genre>Business Communication

Communicating with the Press Release: Teaching Undergraduates the Basics  

Communicating with stakeholders is a concern for every organization. The press release allows firms to convey a message to the public without exorbitant advertising fees and has greater impact than a paid ad because it appears less one-sided. As undergraduates leave academia for the workplace, they become more valuable to employers if they have had practice composing clearly written press releases that achieve the goals of an organization. Teaching the press release allows business communication instructors to reinforce key writing skills such as audience awareness, purpose, clarity, and conciseness. It can be integrated into the syllabus as part of a unit on persuasive writing or taught as a separate genre. Instructors who teach the press release will need to address its core elements: the concept of newsworthiness; conveying the company's main message in the headline and first paragraph; composing in the "inverted pyramid" style typical to journalism; creating compelling quotes for attribution; and designing the document. Classroom activities and assignment ideas are provided.

Mizrahi, Janet. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Press Releases

A Critique of Grammatical Coverage in Business-Communication Textbooks  

Business English (BE) and business communication (BC) overlap. English handles linguistic mechanics and style, whereas communication holistically discusses the movement of a message from one person to another. The BC discipline, unfortunately, allows language basics into its pedagogy like a statistics course teaching fundamental mathematics. From the other side, some English courses teach BC before their students are able to handle that material. A subject teaches prepared students. If they are deficient, they are either kept out or the subject matter suffers.

Kenman, Leon F. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Grammar>Business Communication

Cross Current: Proficient Enough?

A recent Conference Board survey of human resource officials revealed that only 25% of today's college graduates enter the world of work with well-developed speaking skills.

Mottet, Timothy P. Communication Currents (2006). Articles>Communication>Business Communication>Education

Current Status Of Business And Technical Writing Courses In English Departments

We have heard a great deal of talk in recent years about the growth of business and technical writing courses in English departments. But very little, if any, factual information exists on how much enrollments have grown and whether they are expected to grow in the near future. Furthermore, no study has attempted to assess the impact these relatively new, rapidly expanding courses are having and will continue to have on English departments and their faculty members.

Rivers, William E. ADE Bulletin (1985). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Technical Writing

Designing Institutional Space to Bridge Institutional Divides    

Professional/technical writing has long been an effective curricular site for off-campus outreach. Especially compared to other humanities' disciplines (not that that category provides any stiff competition), professional/technical writing has emphasized practical application and liaison between the university and business/industry. Two of the chief reasons I am attracted to this field are its pragmatic orientation and its focus on writing-in-the-world.

Porter, James E. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Documentation Methods for AACSB Learning Assurances  

In 2003, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) redefined their accreditation and reaffirmation standards to move from a traditional outcome-based system to a systematic process-based review. Documentation is required to assure student learning in several core areas, including communication. This paper outlines the data collection procedures and documentation methods used to document one university’s business communication learning assurances.

Gueldenzoph, Lisa E. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Documentation>Education>Business Communication

Editor as Teacher, Writer as Student: Building a Relationship for Corporate Writing Improvement  

Corporate writing skills deficits may be minimized by effective technical writer training programs. One way to effect long-term writing improvement is to cast a skilled technical editor in the role of resident writing teacher. The successful editor-as-writing-teacher must confront personal writing processes and attitudes, develop a positive and trusting relationship with clients, develop writing assessment skills, analyze and understand the corporate culture and language, and keep abreast of new techniques and tools in writing education. Acquistion of these attributes and skills is a realistic goal for a seasoned technical communicator.

Abbott, F. Thomas. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Editing>Business Communication

The Emerging Role of Emotional Intelligence in Business Communication Classes  

Communication is a major component of emotional intelligence models. While we teach persuasive writing, presentations, bad news, good news, and you orientation in our business communication classes, to date we have not looked at the effects emotional intelligence has on our teaching. Emotional intelligence encompasses all areas that we teach in business communication. The purpose of this paper is to show how emotional intelligence is a part of what makes some people good business communicators and others poor ones. If we knew which students had a high-level or which had a low level of emotional intelligence, hypothetically that information could help us teach business communication concepts more efficiently in our classrooms.

Martin, Jeanette S. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Emotions

Expressive Practices: the Local Enactment of Culture in the Communication Classroom    

As students participate in corporate communication classes, they may, on occasion, use the term culture to make sense of their experiences. The authors use Mino's idea of a learning paradigm to shift the emphasis away from teaching traditional theories of culture and use student-centered experiences to teach culture as an expressive practice. Using instances drawn from their own classrooms, the authors show how students can recognize the value of understanding their role in creating culture each time they choose how to act, how to evaluate others' behavior, and whether to label what is going on as cultural.

Wolf, Karen, Trudy Milburn and Richard Wilkins. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Cultural Theory

A Framework for Developing Research-Based Curricula in Professional Writing Programs  

For our field, these are times of significant change. Undergraduate and graduate professional writing programs are proliferating across the country. At the same time, our students are moving into anincreasingly broad range of workplace settings. To respond to this reality, we need to establish reliable frameworks for developing curricula that are aligned with the discursive, technical, social, and ethicaldemands our students will face in these settings. We are proposing such a framework -- i.e., a set ofguiding principles -- for designing research-based curricula for professional writing programs. More specifically, we will describe how this framework can be used to orient the empirical research that willallow us to 1) identify the knowledge, abilities, critical awareness, and aspects of identity that ourgraduates will need as practicing professionals and 2) develop curricula that respond to these needs.

Smart, Graham and Nicole Brown. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Gender Differences in Employees’ and Students’ Knowledge of Office Politics  

Office politics goes on in most work environments. Learning the rules of office politics helps employees of both genders reap the rewards to which they are entitled. As future employees, students must become knowledgeable about office politics to be successful in the world of work.

Green, Catherine G. and Lillian H. Chaney. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Collaboration

The Genre System of the Harvard Case Method    

Focusing on the case write-up within the Harvard case method of instruction, this study provides historical and empirical evidence for the theory of genre systems. The Harvard case literature and interviews at a case-based business school in the Harvard tradition show that the purpose of this largely ignored written genre is to prepare students to participate in the primary genre, oral classroom discussion of the case. The case genre system provides highly conventionalized conductor-choreographer roles for instructors and blunt, detached consultant roles for student writers/speakers who repeatedly enact decisive, adversarial personae affirming practices and values of the business school.

Forman, Janis and Jone Rymer. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Education>Business Communication

The Impact of EQ Training on Collaborative Professional Writing  

Over the course of each semester, students in 300-level business communication courses can expect to produce a number of various types of messages and reports with emphasis on the psychological development of the message. Although education has traditionally demanded an individual approach to most writing tasks in order to assess student performance, most practitioners in the field of business communication recognize the importance of collaborative writing as a necessary skill in preparing students to enter the job market where teams rather than individuals are the primary work unit.

Sigmar, Lucia S., Tab W. Cooper, Geraldine E. Hynes and Kathy L. Hill. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Writing>Education>Business Communication

Improved Student Writing in Business Communication Classes: Strategies For Teaching And Evaluation    

Students in business communication classes are expected to write various types of documents. Research has illustrated that undergraduate student writing skills have not improved even though most states have begun writing proficiency tests at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. By the time students enroll in college, students are expected to be proficient writers. In some cases, this is true. In far too many cases, students continue to need writing development. In business communication classes, these weaknesses cannot be ignored. This article's purpose is to give guidance to instructors to motivate their students to produce better written products. The difficulty is how to do this most effectively. The authors present some ideas on how to improve student writing through some creative teaching and evaluation strategies.

Stowers, Robert H. and Randolph T. Barker. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Writing

Improving MBA Students’ Communication Proficiency: An Orientation Pilot Study That Incorporates Technology and Plagiarism Issues  

This paper describes the progress of an original pilot program that used surveys and reported results from students and faculty concerning student improvement in writing and presentation skills from a convenience sample of courses. Based on the responses to these surveys a pre-test writing instrument and a presentation assessment instrument were designed for and administered to incoming students during their MBA orientation session. Also included in the orientation session were two modules that focused on plagiarism issues and the use of web-based technology for research. This program will be expanded to include post-writing critiques and portfolio communication evaluations.

Alpern, Barbara E., David C. Odett and Richard Pietila. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Institutionally Mapping Professional Writing  

We think it is critically important-especially in a time of declining budgets-for professional writing programs to position themselves in a vital and robust location in the university, and probably outside it as well. What institutional location(s) can best guarantee that professional writing thrive, and also provide it an opportunity to have significant impact?

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Integrating Business Core Knowledge Through Upper Division Report Composition    

The most ambitious project of many undergraduate business communication courses is the formal report. This assignment typically requires the use of many writing skills nurtured throughout the course. Skills such as proper style, tone, organization, flow, and mechanics are enhanced through the writing of memos and various types of letters (persuasive, bad news, etc.). While these skills are all evident in a report, it is a much different kind of document. This synthesis of writing skills can be complemented by the integration of fundamental business subject knowledge. Both skill sets can be concurrently developed through business simulation report assignments, particularly in upper division business communication courses. Such courses are often required in business programs where students have already completed courses in business law, management, basic business statistics, and computer applications. Choosing an appropriate topic and scope for such a report writing assignment can be challenging. As offered in Business Communication Quarterly, many good assignments lend themselves to adoption, each with varying degrees of flexibility, coverage of current topics, and data analysis requirements. The following formal report assignment provides the opportunity to present a wide enough scope to integrate several business disciplines.

Roach, Joy, Daniel Tracy and Kay Durden. Business Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Reports

Integrating Writing Skills and Ethics Training in Business Communication Pedagogy: a Résumé Case Study Exemplar    

An integrated approach to teaching résumé construction in the business communication classroom focuses on simultaneously (a) emphasizing writing-related proficiencies and (b) encouraging ethical and moral orientations to this task. This article provides a résumé construction exemplar that operationalizes these two pedagogical goals. The techniques and exercises used in the exemplar are presented as a way to make ethics education accessible for both business communication instructors and students.

Conn, Cynthia E. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Education>Resumes

The Interview Project: Reinforcing Business Communication Competence    

As business communication instructors, we understand the value of helping students learn, discuss, apply, and manipulate communication strategies on the basis of purpose and audience. This rhetorical bent encourages active learning through activities and multipurpose projects, but active learning often works best when students believe they are engaging concepts that will be useful to them in the future. I learned two very important facts early in my first business communication courses, taught at Iowa State University: First, the majority of my students were required by their majors to take the course, and second, many dreaded or resented taking what they thought of as another boring, impractical, useless 'English' class. To help my students believe that communicating professionally is vital to success, I developed an interview project, completed early in the semester, that encourages students to see beyond their preconceptions while practicing a variety of communication skills with professionals in different workplaces. A Multiphase Interview Project Interview projects are not new in business communication courses but can be extremely effective in actively engaging students. In the multiphase assignment I've developed, students plan, coordinate, conduct, transcribe, and synthesize interviews with three acquaintances or family members who work in different organizations.

Pope-Ruark, Rebecca. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Learning the Intricacies of Effective Communication Through Game Design    

As many teachers of communication come to realize, students often operate under the misconception that the effective use of language consists primarily of memorizing and applying the rules and regulations of grammar. Even worse, some students believe that they must inherit a talent for language and that without a genetic predisposition, they can never learn to use language well. Demonstrating otherwise isn't easy, but because good communication skills are crucial to success in a professional environment, teachers must attempt to do so. In Introduction to Technical and Scientific Communication, a course I teach at James Madison University, I have students complete a fairly traditional assignment in a somewhat nontraditional way, one that highlights the intricacies of effective communication in a context that students find accessible. A typical assignment for an introductory-level technical communication class requires students to write a set of instructions for a procedure they know well. This straightforward assignment is useful but rather uninspiring, not only because students have difficulty realistically defining the audience they're addressing but also because it's much too easy to tap into the already existing sea of instructions available on the Internet. I remembered an assignment from my days as a graduate student teaching freshman composition. The assignment, based on the rhetorical mode of process analysis, required students to create and explain a game generically called 'Student.'

Bednar, Lucy. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication