Are you interested in honing your business writing skills and climbing career ladders? Learn more about the importance of business writing, how you can use it in various career paths, and the investment involved in taking classes to improve your skills.
Key Insights
- Business writing is a specialized form of communication used within and outside an organization, focusing on concision and clarity.
- Proficiency in business writing is invaluable in today's commercial landscape, with applications in emails, business letters, memoranda, reports, and proposals.
- Improving business writing skills can enhance your overall writing quality, leading to more effective communication in all areas of life, including social media and personal correspondence.
- Business writing classes, usually lasting one or two days, typically cost around $300 to $400, with cheaper and more expensive options available.
- Free introductory business writing courses, such as those offered by Udemy and Coursera, can provide a good starting point for interested learners.
- Noble Desktop offers a comprehensive Business Writing Bootcamp, with hands-on curriculum, small class sizes, and a free retake option to reinforce learning.
Do you want to become a better business writer? There are free training options out there, but if you’re serious about it, you’re eventually going to conclude that you’ll need an actual class to get your skills where you want them to be. A class will involve an investment, and some are more affordable than others. The good news is that even the more expensive classes aren’t going to cost both an arm and a leg. While business writing is sometimes labeled a “soft skill,” it’s still one that’s vitally important to your success and one that you can use pretty much anywhere in the business world. A business writing class is, in other words, an excellent investment.
What is Business Writing?
Business writing is a specialized writing style for written communication, both internal (inside your own company) and external (as with a client.) It’s a very different discipline than academic writing (let alone any other writing in which personal style is paramount), substantially limited in the creativity department, and designed to make practical points as quickly and straightforwardly as possible.
The qualities upon which business writing today most depends are concision and clarity. Learning to express oneself within those confines is an invaluable workplace skill, given that email has become the preferred inter-office communication method. There’s no office worker who doesn’t have to read and write emails; a study quoted by GreggU calculated that the average businessperson has to deal with a whopping average of 80 emails daily. And that’s just email: there are business letters, memoranda, reports, and proposals that all need to be written in business language as well.
Read more about what business writing is and why you should learn to do it.
What Can You Do with Business Writing?
Business writing is, in today’s commercial landscape, inescapable. Consider its most frequently encountered application, the email. A generation ago, people made internal calls for quick inter-office communication. They used to have secretaries who could return calls at the recipient’s convenience. Today, those calls have all but been replaced by internal email. Whether or not you perceive that as faster or slower, it’s an inevitable fact of life. Suddenly, people must be able to write in the language of business.
Above and beyond, emails, memoranda, reports, and client proposals all call for business writing that can impress the recipient. Little can make you look better today than being able to write well in the idiom of commerce. Learning how to write a good piece of business English has several other advantages. It will teach you how to organize your thoughts, which, in turn, will help you when it comes to oral presentations. You’ll also become a better writer in general: your social media posts will improve in quality and correctness, and who knows? You may even be able to write a convincing love letter that will capture the person of your dreams.
In-Depth Review of the Training Cost
The most effective (and, in the long run, cost-effective) way of learning business writing is by attending a live class, which can mean either in person in a brick-and-mortar school or online. These classes generally last one or two days and carry comparable price tags in the $300 to $400 range, though there are some more pricey outliers.
Although they lack the human contact with a teacher that makes live classes so effective a teaching method, there is the more economical option of an asynchronous (self-paced or on-demand) class usually costs more in the neighborhood of $100. However, there are outliers on both sides of the scale. For instance, if you can catch Udemy while a sale is on, they have classes for as little as $15.99.
The only associated cost (besides paper and pencils for taking notes) with a business writing course is having a computer armed with word processing software and email access. An advantage of taking a live class in an in-person computer lab is that all the necessary and up-to-date hardware and software will be available. Of course, if you’re going to attend an in-person class, you’re also going to have to factor in the cost of commuting to the class, although that’s probably not going to be too high for journeys you’re only going to have to make once or twice. If you intend to take a class online (be it synchronous or asynchronous), you’ll also need a stable internet connection in the place from which you intend to follow the class.
Free Introductory Business Writing Course Online
If you’re teetering on the verge of taking a business writing class but aren’t quite sure about taking the leap, you might want to consider a free online course. You can’t complain about the price and have nothing to lose. Udemy, for instance, offers a free “Better Business Writing in 35 Minutes” video that is designed to improve your skills quickly (and to tempt you to take one of Udemy’s more in-depth paid classes). Coursera offers an audit-type free option for its writing classes as well.
Those are only the tip of the iceberg. Type “business writing” into the YouTube search box, and you’ll come up with a modest plethora of videos that range in duration from a few minutes to an hour and a half. Some of these are better than others: with some of them, you get what you pay for, and with others, you can come away with a lot of good practical advice that might make you decide to take a more structured class.
Read more about free business writing videos and online tutorials.
Learn Business Writing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop
An excellent way to learn business writing is to take an in-person course such as those offered by Noble Desktop, a tech and IT school in New York City that offers in-person and online classes. Noble provides its students with expert and experienced instructors who are always ready to answer students’ questions, whether they’re posed in the physical classroom or online.
Noble Desktop’s classes offer several features, including small class sizes that guarantee you’ll receive ample attention from the instructor. The curriculum is hands-on, meaning that you’ll be making practical use of what you’re being taught while you’re still in class with exercises that allow your instructor to check on your progress. There is also a free retake option that enables you to repeat the class at no charge within a year of your first taking it. Far from just a means for those who fell behind to catch up, the free retake option makes it possible to cement what you’ve learned firmly in your mind. Classes are fast-paced, and you’re likely to discover that there’s some handy detail you missed the first time around.
Noble offers a Business Writing Bootcamp that begins by reviewing key points of grammar over which people are wont to stumble today. The course then delves into the hows and whys of written business communication in the contemporary world, be it for emails, reports, or other essential documents. And be aware that business writing is only one aspect of the business training classes offered by Noble Desktop
How to Learn Business Writing
Master business writing with hands-on training. Business writing consists of written communication in emails, memos, reports, and other business documentation.
- Business Writing Bootcamp: live, instructor-led course available in NYC or live online
- Find Business Writing Classes Near You: Search & compare dozens of available courses in-person
- Attend a business writing class live online (remote/virtual training) from anywhere
- Find & compare the best online business writing classes (on-demand) from the top providers and platforms
- Train your staff with corporate and onsite business writing training