REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS, Sigman Byrd
This course aims to prepare you for thinking critically and responding effectively to the challenges you will meet in the business world. The primary text will be your writing supplemented with background readings from the course textbook. Assignments will include a variety of professional documents through which you will practice critical thinking, reading, and writing skills and learn how to address the practical needs of different audiences in a variety of rhetorical situations. Some assignments will be practical in nature and based on real-world scenarios, while other assignments will be academic and focus on public policy concerns. In addition, you will learn reader-centered writing strategies and apply them to your work and the work of your classmates in a collaborative workshop setting. You will experience how business writing is fundamentally a cooperative effort between reader and writer, an ongoing negotiation between you and your colleagues, your employer and clients.
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ESL TOPICS IN WRITING, Dr. Andrea Feldman
ESL Topics is a section of WRTG 3020, 3030, and 3040 that is intended for non-native speakers of English who wish to enroll in an upper-division writing course. The course is taught as a rigorous writing workshop using advanced readings and materials, emphasizing critical thinking, analysis, and argumentative writing. Course readings focus on cross-cultural communication in the arts, business, and scientific fields. Assignments will be tailored to meet the needs and interests of individual students.
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ENGAGING BUSINESS DIALOGUES, Michel Lynn Hendry
This course tailors entrepreneurship, small business management, international business, and real estate writing and rhetorical applications to Leeds School of Business accounting, finance, management, marketing, and systems emphases. By undertaking applied exercises and assignments and participating in the workshop methodology for editing and revising, students learn to describe, analyze, evaluate, advocate courses of action, and research, design, and package business information. By completing an informational report, students recognize the value of description (appeals, tropes, definition, visual language). By completing an analytical report, students enlist the critical thinking skills of analysis (claim and evidence) and evaluation (induction, deduction, counterargument) to make information useful to specific audiences. By completing research proposals, recommendation reports, job application materials, and promotional literature, students demonstrate their ability to apply descriptive, analytical, and evaluative principles to multiple business contents and contexts.
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PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL WRITING, Eliza Klinger
Students will develop business writing skills based on a strong sense of document purpose and audience needs and expectations. We will work on practical documents, such as memos, professional emails, resumes, and cover letters, in addition to more extensive writing assignments. This class emphasizes collaborative learning and writing as a process; therefore, students must attend class regularly and participate in class discussions and workshops.
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TRADITIONS IN BUSINESS WRITING, Dr. Peter Kratzke
This section of WRTG 3040 will emphasize what may be called practical rhetoric: what sort of decisions in business situations will be effective? Through a series of readings, we will consider larger issues about business procedure and, ultimately, citizenship. Meanwhile, after a series of shorter exercises, our three major writing assignments will involve both critical thinking and traditional forms of business writing (resumes and cover letters, memoranda, instructions, reports, and proposals). Group collaboration and oral presentation will inform our work throughout the semester. In the end, all students should leave WRTG 3040 with a thorough understanding of the writing process that they can use for any occasion in their pursuit of professional careers.
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WRITING IN BUSINESS, Anna MacBriar
In this course, you will write a business proposal, an ethical policy white paper, and a series of business letters. Each of these assignments requires strong analytical skills and careful reasoning, and emphasizes awareness of focus, audience, purpose and occasion in a variety of real-world business and organizational contexts. You will practice writing clear, concise, highly readable prose, all the while exploring and developing your own personal ethos. In addition, these assignments provide numerous opportunities to explore your professional interests as you prepare for post-graduate life. Throughout the semester, you will share your writing and ideas through workshops of preliminary drafts and a professional-quality class presentation.
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BUSINESS RHETORIC, Susan McArthur
The emphasis for this course is persuasive business writing in a competitive context. Students will analyze and practice classical argument as applied to standard business formats, expanding this framework to write recommendation reports and proposals. Two research projects are completed, based on each student’s focus within the business major; these papers must demonstrate a thorough understanding of audience and purpose. The bulk of class time is conducted as workshops, with student-run critiques intended to result in substantive revision. Finished papers will adhere to modern business standards and avoid the most common barriers to readability and retention. Further, they will be rich in reasoning, empty of logical fallacies, and designed with the reader’s needs in mind. Finally, students deliver two brief oral reports, one a progress update and the other a presentation of their final proposal.
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CONVINCING AUDIENCES, Robert McBrearty
Business writing often involves explaining material to an audience and presenting evidence to recommend a course of action. Using business and social issues as subject material, students will receive instruction in traditional argumentative principles, and learn how to apply those principles in fair-minded, thoughtful, practical ways. Students will consider the needs of their audiences as they develop an effective writing style. Students will write a four-page personal experience essay based on an ethical decision, two four-page arguments, a 5-7 page research assignment, several short business communications including a resume, cover letter, and responses to work-place problems. They will also write a one-page proposal for a final project, and upon approval, will then write the final paper.
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BUSINESS WRITING FROM A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE, John Piirto
The emphases for this course are analysis, structure, and critical thinking. Students will embark upon three major papers that are business-themed, in which they first pose a question and then clearly answer that question in a detailed and persuasive manner. This task demands research, substantial workshopping, revision, a thorough understanding of intended audience, and a graceful, error-free style. These elements will be covered in lectures and smaller written assignments throughout the semester. Students will also practice and improve their verbal skills through a number of oral presentations and extemporaneous question/answer sessions. These will be approximately 10 – 15 minutes in length.
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PROFESSIONAL WRITING, Erika Schreck
This course is designed to develop your understanding and effectiveness in writing within a professional context. Though our emphasis will largely be on professional writing, we will acknowledge writing as one aspect of a greater whole, the business setting; therefore, we will also address workplace issues such as ethics and intercultural communication. We will often workshop assignments, emphasizing writing process and revisional strategies, as well as the needs of different audiences and stakeholders. The main assignments include the following: résumé, application letter, memorandums, formal letters, small-group and individual presentations, e-mail etiquette and a proposal argument for a problem in an actual workplace or organization. Your instructor has worked for American Express and other communications and marketing departments; she has also been a consultant for companies, regarding their communications and business writing.
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MAKING DECISIONS, Paula Wenger
The aim of professional communication is to convey or influence the decisions that drive business. Drawing on field-specific decision-making models as well as principles of corporate social responsibility, you will hone your skills in identifying the evidence and reasoning and selecting the communication strategies that will move a particular audience to a particular course of action. We will explore the critical thinking and rhetorical analysis involved in shaping effective communication strategies, in light of the moral as well as the profit-making challenges of a global marketplace. In addition to writing a cover letter and resume, you will select a research project to develop through a range of written and oral assignments that include a project proposal, annotated bibliography, proposal, and oral presentation. Writing workshops will test your writing with an audience and sharpen your skills in collaborating and giving feedback. We will also cover revising techniques and business writing style.
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