Writing Skills写作技巧

Running head: THE IMPORTANCE OF WRITING IN BUSINESS 1

Outline

I. Two major causes of this problem have been identified by researchers, including poor writing education and lack of employers’ support for a good writing. Some solutions that have been proposed are to improve writing confidence for education and to offer more workplace support for effective writing.

II. Two significant causes of business students’ inability to writing well are lack of education in writing and lack of employers’ support.

A. Lack of education in writing

1. Traditional grammar teaching

a. High school teachers consider grammar to be the least important skill (Griffin & Quible,

p.33)

b. Students treat grammar as an isolated set of rules (Griffin & Quible, p.33)

2. Writing Anxiety

a. More students are hard to apply what they learn to new and different contexts (Griffin &

Quible, p.33)

b. Writing apprehension influence the development of highly apprehensive writers’ writing

skills (Matoti & Shumba, p.217)

B. Lack of emp loyers’ support

1. Lack of knowledge

a. Ignoring to be improving in writing because the employees do not care in this area (Lentz,

p.483)

b. Low expectations and standard from employees for writing skills (Lentz, p.483)

2. Lack of time

a. Improving employees’ writing skills will cost companies much money (Lentz, p.482)

b. There is no time to be given for employees to perform good writing formal (Lentz, p.482) III. Two essential solutions to business students’ inability to write well are improving wri ting confidence and offering more workplace to support for offering more support for effective writing.

A. Improving writing confidence (Education)

1. Providing actual writing experience

a. Sharing drafts in progress and offer feedback (Griffin & Quible, p.34)

b. having mastery experience (Griffin & Quible, p.34)

2. Building self-efficacy

a. Diminishing writing apprehension ( Mascle p.218)

b. Set individual’s goal and regulate self-action (Hidi & Boscolo, 2008; Pajares, 2003, as

cited in Mascle, p.218)

B. Offering more workplace support for effective writing. (Company)

1. Outside supporting (from companies)

a. Proving writing training. (Lentz, p.487)

b. Employees should be able to bring good skills to workplace. (Lentz, p.487)

2. Inside supporting (from students)

a. Making good writing to students’ habit instead of a skill. (Lentz, p.485)

b. Using WAC programmes and WID opportunities. (Nicolas & Annous, 2013, as cited in

Lentz, 2013, p.486)

IV. In conclusion, the issues of poor writing skills have been ana lyzed how it costs companies’ time and money. Also, there are multiple solutions have been published to help the employees and students write well.

The Importance of Writing in Business

Writing skills is one of the most important transferable skills that workers possess. Most business professionals, such as marketing, finance, and research and development managers, need excellent writing skills to properly convey ideas and concepts. Advertising copy has to reach customers with the right message. Emails, letters and contracts have to be understandable. Websites must deliver the information management intends and leave visitors with a positive impression about the company. Clear marketing communication is a definite strength for any business. “However, many business employees, including recent college graduates, have serious writing deficiencies, especially in their ability to use standard English”. (College Board, the National Commission in Writing for American’s Families, Schools, and Colleges,2004, as cited in Quible & Griffin, 2010,p.474). Two major causes of this problem have been identified by researchers, including poor writing education and lack of employers’ support for a good writing. To solve them, improving writing confidence and offering more workplace are two significant solutions.

First of all, lack of traditional grammar teaching in school is an important factor of business students’ inability to write well (Griffin & Quible, p.33). High school teachers consider the grammar as the least important skill and feel that the grammar has little beneficial effect on students’ writing (Griffin & Quible, p.33). During the grammar teaching, students treat grammar as an isolated subject and never put it into the whole context to understand the meaning (Griffin & Quible, p.33). Writing anxiety is another significant factor of students’ educational disadvantage. The students who are entering college with weak writing skills just can write for the specific academic tasks and they have little ability to apply the new and different contexts (Griffin & Quible, p.33). At the same time, they cannot understand the new and different

contexts easily, and then they have little confidence to write within them and so avoid writing. This is a vicious circle in that because they have less confidence to write, and they also will have less desire to understand the materials. E mployees lack of employers’ support i s another reason that they cannot improve their writing skills. This factor can be divided into two parts. The first is that they lack knowledge. The employer cannot write well, and at the same time, they also ignore improving their employees’ writing skills and have low expectations and criteria for their employees’ writing skills (Lentz, p.483). The second part is that companies do not have much money to improve their employees’ writing skills and have no time to let t hem perform well (Lentz, p.482).

According to what have been discussed, two significant solutions to business students’ inability to write well have been found, which are improving writing confidence and offering more workplace to support for effective writing. Firstly, sharing drafts in progress is very important for the business students, and the teachers should offer feedback (Griffin & Quible, p.34). Having mastery experience can provide business students a lot of actual writing experience (Griffin & Quible, p.34). Then the students still have to do something to increase their writing understanding, and decrease the writing anxiety and they also need to set their goals and control self-action, which can help them to build self-efficacy (Hidi & Boscolo, 2008; Pajares, 2003, as cited in Mascle, p.218). These two aspects are very important to improve writing confidence. The more confidence you have, the more desire you will have to write. Secondly, employers should spend more money and time providing writing training to their employees (Lentz, p.487). They also need to use WAC programs and WID opportunities to offer outside supporting, as WAC and WID require students to apply the skills they learned in one writing course to writing assignments in other business courses or contexts (Nicolas & Annous,

2013, as cited in Lentz, p.486). Besides, inside supporting is also a significant aspect of any solution. The researchers prefer making good writing be students’ habit to a skill (Lentz, p.485). When the new employees bring good skills to the workplace, everyone will be encouraged and follow the good writing habit so that the whole writing skills will be improved.

Writing is so fundamental to the conduct of business that it is difficult to imagine how any type of business could operate without it. Besides, the problem has been discussed that how poor writing skills issues cost companies’ time and money. For this reason, two main causes of writing deficiencies---lack of education and employers’ support. We have known the reasons that there are multiple solutions that have been published to improve the employees’and students’ inability to write well. In fact, the problems have been solved from these two aspects. Providing more actual writing experience and building self-efficacy are the best ways to improve writing confidence. What is more, the outside and inside supports are equally significant solutions to the problem of ineffective writing.

WORD COUNT: 813

References

DeBrine Mascle, D. (2013). Writing self-efficacy and written communication skills.

Business Communication Quarterly, 76(2), 216-225.

doi: 10.1177.1080569913480234

Lentz, P. (2013). MBA students’ workplace writing: Implications for business writing pedagogy and workplace practice. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(4), 474-490. doi:

10.1177/1080569913507479

Quible, Z, K., & Griffin, F. (2010). Are writing deficiencies creating a lost generation of business writers? Journal of Education for Business, 83(1), 32-36. doi: 10.3200/JOEB. 83. 1.

32-36