Business Writing Prerequisites

Business writing is a specialized writing style for written communication, both internal (inside your own company) and external (as with a client.) This guide will help you understand the best methods for learning business writing and what you should study first to make the learning process easier. This way, you’ll be successful however you choose to apply your new skills. 

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 Today, those calls have all but been replaced by internal email.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.

Is Business Writing Easy to Learn?

In a word, yes, business writing is easy to learn. More straightforward than many other IT skills, learning business writing teaches you how to do something you already know, while learning to use software usually starts you off from your illiterate beginnings.

Business writing consists of a set of conventions that you can decipher without too much difficulty. You’ll have to learn some new words, rules, and phrases, but you’ve been writing since you were a child, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get used to the linguistic conventions of business writing.

On the other hand, you might find learning how to find the process of organizing your thoughts to suit the needs of business writing a little more of a challenge at first, especially if you have no experience creating outlines. But learning how to organize your thoughts is a valuable skill for more than business writing; with patience, it will come.

The other task associated with business writing with which you may be less acquainted than with the simple act of writing is learning how to edit what you’ve written. With a good business writing teacher and with a set of good examples to consult, you should be able to develop an inner “ear” that can decide when your prose has been kicked into the shape you want for it. That will take even more practice, but it will also come with time; perhaps before long, colleagues will ask you to edit their copy for them.

What to Know Before Learning Business Writing

Fundamental Computer Skills

It may seem a little too obvious to mention, but the first thing you’ll need to know how to do if you're to master business writing is the ability to write on a computer. That means the basic computer skills many of us take for granted, but you have to learn at some point. It also means the ability to touch-type correctly: you’re going to cut seriously into your productivity and ability to shoot out emails if you have to hunt and peck (as it used to be called.)

You’ll also need to know your way around a standard email program. Again, that sounds like the kind of thing people take for granted, but knowing where the “Send” button is and how to insert links and attach documents is something everyone has to learn at some point. Email programs aren’t overly complicated, but knowing how they work (instead of just intuiting your way to making it do the few most basic tasks) can be a real advantage.

Knowing how to write on a computer also means knowing how to use a word processing program, most notably the one used by your organization. Business writing calls for more than just answering emails; thus, you need to know how to create and edit a document. You don’t need to know all the bells and whistles that come with word processing programs (you’ll very doubtfully come across a business assignment that calls for the insertion and customization of shapes, for example). Still, you do need to know the basics. If you also know your way around Google Docs and how to insert comments and suggest changes, so much better.

A Command of the English Language

A business writing class will teach you a particular kind of writing, but that presupposes that you already have some idea of how to write in English. If that’s not your native language, you should be thoroughly comfortable speaking and writing the language before you can acquire business writing conventions. If you can’t do a decent job of writing basic expository English, you will not be able to assimilate the concepts of business English. If it is your native language, you also need basic writing skills before you can attune them to the demands of business writing.

A Solid Grounding in American English Grammar

Finally, before you take a business writing course, you should have an excellent grasp of English grammar. You’ll also need to be a good speller, know your way through the forest of homonyms in which English abounds, and know how the language works. Knowing many of these subtle rules and differences will improve your business English. 

A business English class can’t teach you how to write Standard American English; it can only take people who can already do that and teach them Business English. So, if you need a refresher grammar course, take one. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing much about grammar, especially if you’ve been out of school for a while – what’s wrong is not trying to improve that situation.

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.

Key Insights

• Business writing is relatively easy to learn, assuming you have experience with expository writing.
• Before attempting a business writing class, you should be secure in your knowledge of English and basic English grammatical concepts.
• Noble Desktop offers a grammar brush-up class to prepare students who are a little shaky in that respect for their business writing classes.