Tips on Business Writing

I returned to academia last fall as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver.  I teach within University College which provides professional and continuing education within the larger university. Most of my students are in their 30s or even 40s and many of them work within IT organizations. By and large, they know current enterprise technologies better than I do. They’re now returning to school to study for a Master’s degree that will help them move into management. That’s where I come in — I teach courses on how to manage IT processes, functions, and portfolios. I also teach the Capstone seminar where students demonstrate that they can take all that they’ve learned in their Master’s courses and use it to solve a problem in our profession.

I love working with my students both online and in the classroom. As is often the case, I probably learn more than they do. What surprised me, however, was the relative lack of writing skills among my students. They can write excellent Java code but they sometimes struggle with expressing their more abstract thoughts in written form. To help remedy this situation, I’ve written a six-page primer on effective business writing. It’s proven popular among my students and I thought you might like to read it as well. You can find the .pdf file here. If you find it useful, please feel free to pass it on.