A Guide to Writing in Business, part of the Writer’s Help Guidebook Series, offers writing and research support for students writing in the discipline. This compact yet comprehensive guidebook provides the value students want with the essential instruction they need to complete writing tasks successfully. Students will find advice on how to think, read, research, and design and write papers, and projects and presentations like a business professional.
Coverage includes the following topics, all focused on the specific needs of writers in business:
- Writing process
- Conventions in the discipline
- Integrating and evaluating sources
- Documentation style required in the discipline--with plenty of models
- Sample student writing
Table of Contents:
Introduction: A Guide to Writing in Business
Thinking like a business writer
Questions business writers ask
Kinds of evidence business writers use
Ethics in business writing
Distinguishing fact, opinion, and value
Researching business
Using databases to locate business publications
Researching specific companies
Strategies for optimizing your online searches
Evaluating online resources
Checklist for evaluating online sources
Reading the business literature
Active reading
How to read quantitative and qualitative data
Writing papers and projects in business
Considering your purpose
Understanding your audience in business
Checklist for assessing the writing situation
Planning and drafting
Organizing your document
Revising and editing
Writing conventions in business
Writing strong sentences
Choosing words carefully
Presenting data
Integrating, citing, and documenting sources
Avoiding plagiarism and recognizing intellectual property
Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing sources
In-text citations (APA style)
Reference list (APA style)
Genres of writing in business
Email
Memos and briefs
Critique of an article or case
Competitive analysis
Business proposal
Research report
Analysis and recommendation report
White paper
Presentations
Glossary of vocabulary in business
Practice activities
Practice activity: Learning about the field
Practice activity: Writing for multiple audiences
Practice activity: Using Google Scholar
Practice activity: Article summary and critique
Practice activity: Writing a memo to ask for reimbursement
Practice activity: Revision workshop
Practice activity: Planning a research study
Practice activity: Formulating a research question about a topic
Practice activity: Evaluating online information
Practice activity: Locating and evaluating sources
Practice activity: Understanding the difference between quantitative and qualitative data
Answers to selected activities
Sample student writing: Business
More help with documentation: APA style
APA-style reference list: Additional examples
Editing strategies
Subject-verb agreement
Pronoun agreement, reference, and case
Strong verbs
Sentence fragments
Run-on sentences
Distracting shifts
Parallel structure
Clear, uncluttered sentences
Sentence emphasis
Commas
Apostrophes
Quotation marks
About the Author :
Stephen A. Bernhardt is Professor of English and the Andrew B. Kirkpatrick Chair in Writing at the University of Delaware, where he teaches composition, grammar, and technical writing. His professional interests include computers in composition/distance education, writing across the curriculum, professional and technical communication, and visual rhetoric. He has also taught at New Mexico State University and at Southern Illinois University. The author of many journal articles and technical reports, Bernhardt is also the author of Writing at Work (1997) and coeditor of Expanding Literacies: English Teaching and the New Workplace (1998). Bernhardt designed the research plan and reworked content for Writers Help.
Nancy Sommers, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She led Harvard’s Expository Writing Program for twenty years, directing the first-year writing program and establishing Harvard’s WAC program. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles “Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers” and “Responding to Student Writing” are two of the most widely read and anthologized articles in the field of composition. Recently she has been exploring different audiences through blogging and through publishing in popular media. Sommers is the lead author on Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, and is coauthor of Fields of Reading, Tenth Edition (2013).
