Revised 08/2018

ENG 116 - Writing for Business (3 CR.)

Course Description

Develops business writing ability through extensive practice in composing business correspondence and other documents. Guides the student in achieving voice, tone, style, organization, and content appropriate to a specific audience and purpose. Includes instruction in formatting and editing. Introduces the student to a business discourse through selected readings.

Lecture 3 hours per week.

General Course Purpose

ENG 116 will provide the student with an introduction to writing in business formats and requires regular production of original business documents.

Course Prerequisites/Corequisites

Prerequisite: Placement into ENG 111 or divisional approval.

Course Objectives

Goal One: Delivery of Information in Business Communications

ENG 116 reproduces the work environment and its demands on workers to communicate business matters efficiently through speech and writing. By the end of the course, the students will be able to:

  • demonstrate in oral and written projects their ability to explain, question, and compromise regarding a wide range of business concerns.

Goal Two: Effective Business Style

ENG 116 reinforces students’ knowledge of correct grammar, syntax, and expression in English with modern business formats. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • study and produce documents that incorporate clear sentence and paragraph structure;
  • write reports and weekly exercises that model correct business formats;
  • discuss, identify, and produce writing samples that reflect contemporary business style as well as electronic writing styles, such as e-mail.

Goal Three: Writing to an Audience

ENG 116 teaches students to incorporate audience awareness successfully into business writing. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • analyze writing samples for attention to a specific audience;
  • create documents specifically targeted to an identified audience.

Goal Four: Principles of Persuasion and Reasoning

ENG 116 teaches students the importance of logic and sound structure in argumentation. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • analyze and construct logically organized arguments.

Goal Five: Skills of Listening and Public Speaking

ENG 116 teaches students to improve their communication skills by successfully absorbing and challenging ideas from others’ speech and expressing ideas in their own. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • illustrate the positive techniques of public speaking through regular contributions to class discussions and individual oral reports;
  • illustrate successful listening skills, through class discussions and responses to oral reports of their classmates.

Goal Six: Collaboration and Teamwork

ENG 116 emulates the business world by requiring students to produce effective writing in groups. By the end of the course, the students will be able to:

  • integrate the five goals above in at least one group writing project during the semester.

Major Topics to Be Included

  • Survey of business communications
  • Functions and importance of communications
  • Types of business communication, oral and written
  • Practice in writing reports, letters, and memoranda
  • Analysis of audience and adaptation of material to specific audience
  • Organization of material
  • Effective business style
  • Principles of persuasion
  • Review of successful sentence and paragraph structure
  • Documented Reports