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Welcome to Saylor.org's Professional Writing course, part of our Professional Development
program of study. The courses in this program are designed for adult learners who want targeted
skills they can immediately apply in a professional setting.
In this course, you'll learn skills toward writing effective documents in the workplace,
even if you've already got years of practice. We'll look at the most common business documents,
such as emails, memos, proposals, presentations, and we'll think about how to shape these for
maximum impact.
The single most important thing? Audience. Who are your readers? What do they want? What
do they need to know? If you really know the answers to these questions and you keep your
focus tight, your final draft will make a positive impression.
You'll have an opportunity in each unit to practice your skills through writing. At the
end, you'll test your understanding with a multiple choice exam and get your score right
away. You can go back and review any part of the course at any time during the test.
This course can be completed in about three and a half hours, but to improve your writing
long term, you'll need to practice: write often, and review what you've learned. We've
put an editorial checklist at the end of the course. Print it, bookmark it, save it. Whenever
you're composing an email, a cover letter, even a Facebook post, the checklist will help
you catch errors before you broadcast them to the world.
I hope you enjoy the course, and, more importantly, I hope you enjoy seeing the improvements in
your own writing.