By Robert F. Abbott

If you’ve been shopping for businesswriting courses, you may be shaking your head and trying to sort out all the possibilities.

To help you with your investigation, let me suggest that you always check for the constant objective: Getting readers to think or do what you’re asking of them. That’s almost always the intent behind all types of written documents, but especially those written in a business context.

For example, you might be asking prospects to buy your products, asking customers to buy from you again, or asking employees to be careful around moving equipment. Those are just a few of the many ways in which written communication is used in business. And, your objectives may be directly realizable, or indirectly.

Still, they all have one thing in common, and that is a desire to influence the thoughts and behaviors of our readers. We want readers to respond in certain ways, to help us achieve our objectives. Of course, if we can help them achieve their objectives at the same time, then our pitch will be that much more persuasive.

So, when considering business writing courses, be sure to find out which of the courses is most likely to help you get the results you want. Read through the course descriptions looking for a list of promised outcomes or benefits you can expect after you’ve completed them.

Let me give you a couple of examples from my own business writing courses. First, there’s 3 Easy Ways to Power Up Your Writing, which promises to make your writing more readable, more lively, and more effective. In other words, you’re being promised that your writing will be more effective, and as a result, more likely to get the results you want.

Moving to the next step with this example, how will your writing be made more effective? By making it more readable and more lively. That involves three practices you can (and should) adopt. An excerpt from one of them, making transitions, especially from paragraph to paragraph, is shown as an example of what you’ll get in the booklet.

The second example from my business writing courses is How to Craft a Communication Strategy. It promises to guide you through the four steps involved in developing a strategy and a statement for a major communication initiative. In this case, you would expect to come away from the course ready to write a communication strategy of your own.

We see two different types of outcomes being promised in these examples, but essentially they both offer to help you achieve your objectives, and influence the way readers think or act. For 3 Easy Ways to Power Up Your Writing, that means having the skill and ability to keep readers reading until you’ve made your pitch, whatever it may be. For How to Craft a Communication Strategy, it’s having enough knowledge about communication planning to start writing one of your own.

You will see many other kinds of outcomes promised when you search for business writing courses that address your specific needs. Regardless of the nature of the promise, the key is to see some outcomes specified. Instructors who want you to buy their business writing courses should be able to identify and describe the outcomes; if not, it’s time to look elsewhere.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Business-Writing-Courses