Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Writing for Business: Case Exercises in Effective Business Writing
    Writing for Business: Case Exercises in Effective Business Writing
    Writing for Business: Case Exercises in Effective Business Writing
    Ebook176 pages1 hour

    Writing for Business: Case Exercises in Effective Business Writing

    By Dennis Signorovitch

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Each of the 16 unique and immersive cases takes you right into a situation that actually occurs in business and lets you practice the writing skills that will contribute to your career success: the need to change a business model no longer works, to respond to slumping demand or irate customers, to confront shifting market dynamics, to ensure that a new product launch is a success or a new ERP system is well received, to explain changing relationship with suppliers and vendors, to take the initiative on workforces diversity challenges, and the always present need to manage your career.

    “If you can write and communicate effectively, you'll be a standout leader. Dennis Signorovitch’s book masterfully helps you build that vital skill.”
    Maria Salinas
    President & CEO
    Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

    “Too often in business the ability to communicate is assumed. But not many do it well. It’s hard work. Fortunately, it is a skill that can be learned, and Writing for Business shows the way.”
    Daniel Burnham
    former Chairman & CEO
    Raytheon Company

    “As an entrepreneur, I know how valuable clear, concise and persuasive writing is when building a business and a brand. The varied cases found in Writing for Business offer students the opportunity to develop this essential skill.”
    Dennis Vu

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMay 23, 2021
    ISBN9781663216656
    Writing for Business: Case Exercises in Effective Business Writing
    Author

    Dennis Signorovitch

    Dennis Signorovitch is an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles, where he teaches management communications in the Department of Business Administration. He also created and sponsors the department’s annual Business Writing Challenge for undergraduates. Previously, he worked for nearly thirty years in executive-level communications roles with several major corporations. During that time, he also served a term as chair of the Aerospace Industries Association’s communications council and on The Conference Board’s council of corporate communications executives.

    Related to Writing for Business

    Related ebooks

    Economics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Nail Your Dream Job

      Jul 28, 2021

      Nail Your Dream Job
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      What To Do If You Manage A Bad Boss

      Apr 25, 2021

      What To Do If You Manage A Bad Boss
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Getting The Most From A Mentor

      Jan 16, 2020

      Getting The Most From A Mentor
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Industry Insights

      Mar 24, 2021

      Industry Insights
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How To Nail A Video Interview

      Aug 7, 2020

      How To Nail A Video Interview
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tell Better Stories To Stand Out From The Crowd

      Apr 25, 2021

      If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do I stand out from the crowd?”, “How do I cut through all the noise and attract customers who want to buy my product or service?”, or “How do I build a personal or business brand?” – telling better stories is the

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Owning Your Niche Market

      Jun 24, 2021

      Owning Your Niche Market
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Customer Experience: The Never-ending Story

      Jun 21, 2018

      We’re thinking about customer experience all wrong. We often think of customer experience as a series of touchpoints: a visit to a store or a call to a helpdesk and so on. But a new study by business consultants McKinsey found a remarkable anomaly. I

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How To Ask For Feedback

      Oct 20, 2020

      David Klein began his career at McKinsey, an organization obsessed with feedback. So, in 2011, when he launched New York City-based student loan lender CommonBond, Klein decided to made feedback core to his company’s culture. When seeking structured

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      No Bad Teams, Just Bad Leaders

      Jul 11, 2019

      Idon’t know exactly when this happened, but over the last several years the dialogue around leadership has degenerated into a fluffy, abstract conversation about desirable leadership attributes. We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time and energ

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Learn To Tell Your Story

      Dec 10, 2018

      Learn To Tell Your Story
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Claiming Your 4 Superpowers

      Jan 21, 2021

      Claiming Your 4 Superpowers
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Burst of Branding

      Apr 1, 2014

      A Burst of Branding
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Your Structured Approach To Brand Management Is Killing You

      Feb 11, 2018

      For many years now, academics and agencies have been developing scientific models to measure the strength of the brands we build. This is based on the prevailing wisdom that a good brand is one that grows in equity over time. The result is a (very re

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      On The Power Of Influence

      Oct 1, 2019

      On The Power Of Influence
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Trust, Teams And Changing Times

      Jun 2, 2022

      Long-time FM contributor Marie-Claire Ross wants to talk about trust. Her work, through her business, Trustologie, helps leaders, senior and middle management and their teams to build connections, first and foremost, across people and teams. COVID-19

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How to Keep Your Employees from Jumping Ship During the Great Resignation

      Mar 2, 2022

      “The news is filled with stories of employees refusing to come back to work, jumping ship to another employer, or trying their luck at becoming entrepreneurs,” observes Gorick Ng, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Unspoken Rules: Secr

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How to Ask Better Questions

      Sep 1, 2018

      Karen Christensen: Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew that, I could solve the problem in less than

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Writing for Business

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Writing for Business - Dennis Signorovitch

      Copyright © 2021 Dennis Signorovitch.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      The exercise cases are works of fiction. The names, organizations, and circumstances are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual individuals, organizations, or circumstances is entirely coincidental.

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      844-349-9409

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

      ISBN: 978-1-6632-1664-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-6632-1665-6 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2021905696

      iUniverse rev. date: 06/15/2021

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Becoming an Effective Writer

      Tools for Successful Business Writing

      Change for the Better

      Explaining a New Sales Approach to the Finance and Sales Teams

      Riding an Unexpected Wave

      Sending Assurance to Employees and Franchisees to Counter Distracting News

      If the Shoe Fits

      Keeping the Sales Reps Focused on Future Opportunities, Not Past Successes

      Stay the Course and Stay Positive

      Projecting Determination and Overcoming Employee Doubts in a Tough Market

      Flying Frustration

      Winning Back Your Customers’ Trust

      Don’t Ease Up on the Gas

      Getting Everyone Ready for a Market Downturn

      Sad News, but Stay Focused

      Highlighting the Business, Not the Individual

      What Gets Measured Gets Done

      Letting Your Prospective Employees Know Diversity Matters

      Change Is on the Menu

      Linking Changing Market Expectations with Consistent Company Values

      A Dollar Saved, a Dollar Earned

      Offering Today’s Suppliers a Chance to Become Tomorrow’s Partners

      Good News and More Work Ahead

      Celebrating a Positive Development and Spurring Greater Effort across the Business

      Unlimited Challenges

      Alerting the Board of Directors to the Company’s Response to a New Competitive Threat

      Here Comes the Future

      Telling the Industry the Company’s Story and Vision for the Future

      Staying in the Game

      Balancing the Need for a Costly New Investment with the Promise of Greater Efficiency and Future Growth

      Not Out of the Woods Yet

      Confronting a Pandemic-Driven Business Crisis

      What’s Next?

      Letting Them Know Where You Want Your Career to Go

      Appendix

      Case Analysis Worksheet

      Case Writing Checklist

      A Quick Reference Guide to Basic Business-Writing Formats

      US Department of Transportation Bumping Policy

      To the memory of Susan

      Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly.

      That’s why it’s so hard.

      —David McCullough

      If you can’t explain what you’re doing in plain English,

      you’re probably doing something wrong.

      —Alfred E. Kahn

      PREFACE

      To Students

      An unexpected satisfaction I discovered as a college instructor, after a long career in business, was the occasional communication from former students updating me on their careers. I soon noticed that a number of these emails from young professionals two or three or more years out of college were well written. At first, I assumed that my efforts to improve their writing had—at long last and in the fullness of time—paid off.

      But modesty quickly got the upper hand, and I came to accept, however reluctantly, that my correspondents were simply more experienced. They’d had more occasions to do writing relevant to their jobs and careers paths. My earlier attempts to grind away at sentence length, word choice, passive construction, proofreading, and all the other precepts of acceptable writing had sunk in or faded away, but in either case, these were now subordinated to the professional need to write clearly. Their emails were less the result of instruction than of experience.

      This small book is rooted in the simple, perhaps obvious, insight that you learn to write well through practice. The cases included here will give you a head start on the process of regular business writing. The introduction and first chapter provide advice on how to analyze the cases and some basic guidelines and guardrails to help in writing. Make yourself familiar with this material. But the real value will be found in the cases and the accompanying writing tasks.

      None of the assignments demand the thorough research and lengthy assessment that goes into a college term paper. That’s not the intent. Instead, they involve writing a cover note encouraging the sales team, a message to employees, a letter to the board of directors, or an invitation to a company’s suppliers. These are the kind of writing tasks you’re most likely to encounter in business.

      Even in a communications environment that often seems to rely on little more than terse, punctuation-free messages sent on mobile devices, the ability to write well matters. Employers look for writing skills in job prospects and their current staff members too. It will increase your value as an employee and, in time, contribute to your success.

      To Instructors

      This compilation of writing exercises is aimed directly at your undergraduate business students. The cases present a variety of writing tasks found in the business world rather than typical college writing assignments. They can supplement the assigned textbooks across much of the business curriculum. They may prove especially useful in courses offered to third- and fourth-year students, including courses on management principles, organizational behavior, marketing, and management communications.

      The cases lend themselves to substantive classroom discussion. In some respects, these class sessions can simulate meetings that occur in an organization before action is taken. Consider using the worksheet in the first chapter to structure the critical thinking that must precede writing. Encourage students to probe beneath the surface of each case to identify issues that should inform the writing in matters such as tone, urgency, or unstated motivations of the individuals involved. What facts and details should be used? In what order should they be arranged to make the message clear and compelling? Which can be ignored? Make it clear to your students that in their roles as the writers in each case, the messages they produce will reflect on them just as they would if they were junior staff members in an actual business.

      Also, discourage students from trying to find the right answer to each case. Effective business writing is clear and persuasive, not categorically right or wrong. Some students might find this unsettling; how could they not after so many years spent in classrooms? Help them understand that the business world does not come with a textbook that has the correct answers conveniently found in the back. The cases also can be used for oral presentations—not magic-lantern slideshows that risk anesthetizing the listener but tightly structured in-class briefings that synthesize the key points of a student’s written reports combined with a chance to hone students’ skills at speaking in business meetings.

      Regardless of how you present the cases, keep them coming over the course of the semester. They are intended for a quick turnaround, perhaps a weekend or a few days. The learning is linked with the frequency of the assignments.

      The checklist in the first chapter provides a useful way to measure and track the success of each writing submission. You can use the scoring scale to evaluate students’ work. Alternatively, have students score their work first and then offer your score on each element of the checklist. The difference between the two scores can generate a rewarding dialogue about the effectiveness of the student’s writing. But no matter how you elect to use the cases and worksheets, the fundamental premise of Writing for Business remains that student writing improves through regular practice.

      Finally, the cases are intended to be realistic, but some of the layers of complexity in an actual business setting have been pared back to improve comprehension and make the writing tasks more manageable for students. If, in the process of doing so, the cases have lost a measure of realism, it was a deliberate decision on my part.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The students who took up the challenge of effective business writing over the years inspired me to write this casebook. It’s my hope that the undergraduates who follow in their footsteps will benefit from what I have learned from them.

      A stalwart group of friends and colleagues, past and present, generously gave their time to read the cases. At different times and places, several of them were with me on the corporate communications front lines where a good deal of writing was done. All of the following contributed insights and suggestions that inform the case studies: Mike Ascolese, Lauren Astor, Howard Blumberg, Dan Burnham, Dr. Michael French, Terrence Mick Grasmick, Ron Iori, Dr. David Leese, Joe Leonard, Ernie Linneman, Bill Reavis, Andy

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1