Business Writing Certificate
This class will begin again in Spring 2012. Send us an email so we can alert you when registration opens.
Improve your communication in the workplace, regardless of where you are on your career continuum. StoryStudio Chicago now offers an intensive 6-Week Business Writing Certificate.
Unlike any other business writing training, we use the unique lessons of fiction to help you tell your corporate story, prepare your marketing materials, or write proposals, fundraising appeals, or inner-office emails. Let us help you take your writing from liability to asset.
In this economy, strong business writing skills are more important than ever. In a recent survey, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 executives said they’ve declined to interview candidates merely because of poor grammar, spelling, or punctuation in resumes and cover letters. 99 percent of the same executives said poor writing hurt an employee’s chances at promotion. (DuBay, W: The Principles of Readability).
Our unique six-session Certificate Program will teach you:- Journalistic and fiction-writing techniques to unlock the writer within.
- To understand “calls to action” and learn strategies for memo and letter writing.
- Which questions to ask before you start writing.
- How to move into the right frame of mind to tell your “story”.
- How to revise and edit your project from a first draft to a finished product.
- Grammar and punctuation skills, including common misconceptions (and their corrections).
Each week will focus on a particular aspect of written communications such as: calls to action, clear and concise language, and grammar and punctuation.
Student Expectations:
Class sessions will include writing exercises, discussion, and individual attention. Students will be expected to hand in weekly homework assignments, which typically require between one and three hours of work, and attend five out of six sessions to earn the Certificate.
- Small group instruction: StoryStudio Business Writing classes are limited to 15 students, assuring personal attention and plenty of interaction.
- Writers on writing: Our instructors are professional writers, editors and teachers, NOT sales reps stuffed with jargon and lingo.
- We bring the lessons of fiction to the corporate world: Using storytelling techniques to unlock your inner writer, we show you how to tap into your own creative spirit (while still remaining true to corporate philosophy and culture).
Who Should Attend:
This course is open to everyone who has to write at work. Entry level employees as well as senior managers will benefit from learning how to write more clearly and persuasively.
About Our Students:
Our business writing classes have helped employees from a diverse list of organizations including AECOM, Saatchi & Saatchi X, Easter Seals, Ounce of Prevention, DePaul University, University of Chicago, IIT, Tawani Foundation, Sara Lee, Prudential Capital Group, Emmis Communications, and others.
- Mesirow Financial
- SC Johnson
- Colliers International
- Yelp.com
- Society for Marketing Professional Services/Chicago
- Museum of Science and Industry
- Macarthur Foundation
- NAVTEQ
- Collins Engineers
About the Instructor:
Erin O’Neill has published more than 200 pieces in ELLE, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun Times, The Red Eye, SPACE Magazine, Modern Home + Living, and Military.com. She holds a BA in English and Sociology from Georgetown University and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has worked as a staff Editor at SPACE Magazine in California, a trainer with the U.S. Marine Corps in Virginia and as a freelance journalist, writer and researcher all around the nation. She is an editor and proofreader for a number of corporate clients and e-learning companies. Erin is currently Interim Sr. Director of Marketing Communications at University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Sessions: 6
Location: Chicago, 4043 N. Ravenswood #222
Course Fee: $550. Includes course materials and instructor reviews.
PLUS: Have two or more employees register for this Certificate program and receive $20 off each student fee. (Please call us to register multiple students: 773.477.7710.)