Course information

Business Writing. Communicate with clarity and impact.

Artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools are transforming the way we write in the workplace. But how can professionals harness its power, while writing business emails, reports and other documents that reflect their own voice and expertise?

In this foundational business writing workshop, we explore efficiency-boosting ways to use AI to brainstorm, probe and research your angle or audience. We pair this with timeless techniques to plan your writing, meet audience needs and develop a clear structure, keeping you in control of the final message. We also uncover the logic behind good writing craft, such as correct sentence grammar and plain English, then use AI selectively to finesse the writing for specific outcomes.

Fast-paced and fun, the course reinforces that clear thinking and social awareness are the keys to business writing success, not big words or jargon-heavy flourishes. The workshop includes multiple hands-on exercises, lively discussion and in-class feedback on the work you write.

The course is a useful lead-in to the more in-depth persuasive writing techniques covered in the Business Writing Masterclass: From Core Skills to AI Tools, and the specialist report-writing skills covered in the Effective Business Report Writing Course. It can be taken on its own or in conjunction with either course.

Aims

This course aims to provide you with the tools to write clearly and concisely in any setting, using AI selectively to enhance your original thinking. It also covers the latest conventions in grammar, style, formatting and other systems that govern good writing.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• understand the benefits of AI writing tools, as well as ethical, security and creative limitations
• cross-check that your writing addresses the purpose and audience correctly
• choose the right structure for the task at hand
• write clear and concise, jargon-free communications
• choose the right level of formality for that context
• edit your text for the four essential elements of good writing style.

Content

This course is organised in the sequence of steps typically use to plan, structure, write and review any piece of business communications.

AI writing overview

Establishing the limitations and benefits of AI, particularly in areas such as ethics, originality, accuracy and completeness.  

Planning

Considering audience needs, reaffirming your objectives, and choosing the right level of formality before starting to write.

Introduction to reporting

An overview of the three structures (narrative, hierarchy and topic) to use in business documents such as short reports and memos. (You may wish to consider our full-day Business Report Writing Course, if report-writing is your priority).

Tool #1: Short summaries

The report structures introduced earlier can help professionals to summarise from several sources. In this section, participants will complete several exercises summarising content using the given structures.

Refining expression

How to edit your writing in four fundamental areas: clear links, correct grammar, minimal jargon, and correct punctuation. This section includes several pair exercises and facilitator feedback that embed the learnings.

Tool #2: Emails

This unit introduces several frameworks to establish correct etiquette, suitable structure, appropriate level of tact, action-oriented subject lines and more. The real-life examples in the workbook are drawn from scenarios including stakeholder negotiation, conflict management and structured announcements.

Intended audience

This workshop is aimed at early or mid-career professionals who need to learn or improve their core skills in business writing. These include technical staff moving into managerial roles, people returning to the workforce after extended leave, or office managers wanting to adopt current best practice in their workplace.

Prerequisites

This course assumes basic proficiency in written business English.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

You will learn through a variety of methods including open discussions, group exercises and individual written responses to a range of prompts.

Materials

A course workbook containing essential reference material along with space to write your responses to each exercise, is provided electronically.

Additional information

You will have the opportunity to develop a piece of writing from your organisation. Please bring along some simple notes or an outline of this work. If you do not have any work in progress, you may work on our fictional classroom scenario instead.

Please bring your laptop, with logins ready to access your preferred AI platform (we suggest Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude.ai). You may use a phone or tablet if you do not have a laptop.

You will be working on at least two scenarios from your own workplace, and we suggest you arrive with a draft of these scenarios ready to use.