Being able to write well can help you advance in your career.
Most jobs require writing skills – eventually, if not right away. If you are promoted at your job, you will eventually find yourself in a position that requires good writing skills. This applies to even the jobs people think of as most unrelated to writing. Construction foremen and park rangers need to write reports and memos, and restaurant managers need to write personnel reports for annual reviews. There’s no escape from the need for good writing skills if you expect to excel in your chosen field.
A Consistent Professional Voice
Think about times when you’ve had to read another person’s writing, like office memos, email or even social media. What goes through your head when you see obvious mistakes? Maybe you are charitable and understanding, reasoning that the person is writing informally and not expecting a grammar check, but chances are, you begin to question their expertise and credibility when their writing contains errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling.
When you write well, you won’t give your colleagues and superiors at work the opportunity to question your expertise and credibility. And because not everyone recognizes the importance of being able to write well, you will typically set yourself apart from your peers when you have good writing skills.
Writing well will give you a consistent professional voice. If you are well-spoken in person and in professional settings, then you should also have good writing skills so that your supervisors and colleagues will see you as the complete package.
Rising to the Top
Having good writing skills helps you rise to the top of your career field or company. If you have the ability to write clear and concise materials like how-to manuals, press releases, and corporate reports, you will naturally be in a position to lead others and will increase your value to the company.
Good writing skills may open up opportunities like being a social media or website liaison or spearheading a company newsletter. The more job responsibilities you have that the company considers important, the better your job security will be.
Most careers will involve writing if you advance far enough.
Gaining Writing Skills
Unless you paid very close attention to your high school grammar teacher, you may not even realize you are making writing mistakes or that your skills need help. Taking a course will give you the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the English language and all its strange and quirky rules so that you don’t break them.
Additionally, a good writing teacher will go beyond simple correctness and teach you how to get your point across clearly and simply.
CCSU is offering a one-day workshop on writing skills at work that will lay the groundwork for developing these important skills. Although the instruction takes place in only four hours, the course also includes six weeks of feedback and help with work-related writing so that you can practice and reinforce the skills learned using real-world work situations. View all the open Continuing Education courses for more options to meet your professional needs.