Communication Fundamentals - Online Course

This series teaches the writing skills learners will need to effectively communicate in a business setting. They'll learn how to prepare for a writing task, and about strategies and skills for effective word choice, sentence building, and paragraph design.

This series is for anyone who wants to improve his or her professional writing skills. This online course contains 7 lessons and should take approximately 11 hours to complete.

Lesson 1: The Planning Worksheet (1.0) hour

The Planning Worksheet teaches you how to describe the benefits of using a planning worksheet, determine the basic prerequisites of your business communication, identify the audience of your business communication, and decide the format, style, order, and attachments of your business communication. After taking this course, the learner will be able to use a Planning Worksheet to analyze the needs and restrictions of a writing task. Topics include Initial Analysis, Audience Analysis, and Presentation Analysis.

Lesson 2: Writing Skills (2.0) hours

Writing Skills teaches you how to identify the five qualities of effective words, identify the rules of correct word usage, identify the guidelines for nondiscriminatory language, build effective sentences, recognize and correct common sentence faults, and design paragraphs successfully. This course will help you improve your business writing skills by choosing appropriate words, building effective sentences, and identifying and correcting common sentence faults. Topics include Five qualities of effective words, Rules of correct word usage, Guidelines for nondiscriminatory language, Building effective sentences, Common sentence faults, and Paragraph design.

Lesson 3: Patterns of Development (1.0) hour

Patterns of Development teaches you how to define each informative prose pattern, list business applications for each pattern, and provide examples of each informative prose pattern. After taking this course, you will be able to organize business writing into specific patterns, depending on the type of information you want to communicate. Topics include Narration, Causal analysis, Persuasion, Description and definition, Comparison/Contrast, Classification, and Process analysis.

Lesson 4: Letters (2.0) hours

Letters teaches you how to list the acceptable letter-writing formats, discuss three categories of letters, determine which style of writing is best for a particular situation, and write neutral, positive, negative, and persuasive letters. The course discusses standard letter parts and letter formats. This course talks about planning a correspondence, and the words, sentences, and paragraphs used when creating an effective letter. It also discusses the block and modified letter formats and how they differ. Finally, this course presents how to write letters that convey neutral or positive news, as well as how to write negative news letters with tact and courtesy. Topics include Parts of a letter, Letter formats, Neutral and positive news, Negative news, Persuasive letters, and Sales letters.

Lesson 5: Memos, E-Mail and Other Communications (1.0) hour

Memos, E-Mail and Other Communications teaches you how to discuss memos, explain proposals, create a press release, and describe e-mail and faxes. This course discusses memos, proposals, press releases, e-mails, and faxes. Topics include Memos, Proposals, Press releases, and E-mail and fax.

Lesson 6: Reports (1.0) hour

Reports teaches you how to describe the general characteristics of formal reports, describe acceptable formats of reports, and explain how formal, informational, analytical, and persuasive reports should be organized. After taking this course, you will be familiar with the general characteristics and acceptable formats of formal, informational, analytical, and persuasive reports. Topics include Characteristics of reports, Formal reports, Informational reports, Analytical reports, and Persuasive reports.

Lesson 7: Documentation (3.0) hours

Documentation teaches you how to understand the importance of planning your projects, select information relevant to your audience, identify and set up the standard sections of a document, list the four rules of producing effective documentation, use charts, graphs, and tables to illustrate steps in the procedures you are documenting, and choose the best formatting characteristics for your documentation project. In this course, you will learn how to write clear, concise documentation. You will be able to effectively plan your documentation project and decide what information to include. This course also discusses the proper parts of a document, the editing process, and the preparation of your document for production and distribution. Topics include Planning the project, Gathering information, Organizing information, Producing document parts, Writing your documentation, Writing and editing drafts, and Finalizing your document.