Freshman Business Students Getting Early Taste of Business Writing

Students are getting a taste of what might be in store for them when they start a career while they are still in their first semester at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Through an assignment to research and write a business brief for the Freshman Business Connections class, this year's 1,400 Walton freshmen are learning to write like business professionals.

 "There's a huge difference in business and academic writing," said Jeannie Waller, director of Walton's Business Communication Center. "We want our students to be more professional in their writing and thinking. This is a different kind of assignment for them."

The Business Communications Center has recently expanded from being a writing center where business students could get advice and tutoring on papers and assignments to a full-service resource for all types of business communications — from written reports to live presentations.

The writing assignment for Freshman Business Connections — a course every first-year business student takes at Arkansas — is part of that expanded role. 

Jeff Hood, Walton's director of Undergraduate Programs who teaches Freshman Business Connections, said this is an assignment and approach unique to the Walton College. "They get to do real business writing in their first semester as a freshman," Hood said. "When they are a junior or senior and have to do it in their classes, it's not the first time they've done it."

The assignment has three primary goals: an introduction to professional writing, including concepts such as audience and the style of writing for business; development of critical thinking; and the evaluation of the writing skill level of the freshman class overall so that the communication center can develop resources to help all students become better business writers.

In this first-year assignment, students were asked to imagine that they worked for a large international company and that they must research current thinking on business diversity programs and investigate the diversity practices of other large companies. Then, they were required to write a business brief of 750 to 1,000 words to recommend if their company should make diversity a priority and if they were to create a policy, what kinds of programs or initiatives should be included.

Students were not required to but they could prepare an outline and go over it with writing specialists in the communication center. They handed in their finished business brief for a grade but may get it back to rewrite or revise. "We want them to think it out," Waller said.

"They do really well," she said. "The students have really responded to it."

To help them with the assignment, students were given specifics of what to include in a business brief and what to leave out. They were also given an overview of the difference in academic writing and business writing, with key differences to think about.

"This project for freshmen helps them develop writing skills but also critical thinking skills," Waller said.

"Employers and our corporate partners have been telling us this is what they want," Hood said. "They want graduates who can do business writing. It is a skill that our students need to be more employable when they graduate."

"We are teaching them the skills they need to succeed," Hood said.