Business Communication Skills: Business Writing & Grammar

Welcome to this course on written business communication. In this course, we'll cover many things like English grammar, strong word choice, email writing, writing a business letter and a cover letter, creating business proposal, a business report, and creating nice presentations for meetings. The course is quite extensive, and covers many scenarios of business communication. So welcome and enjoy the course!

In this video, I provide a self-assessment test to see whether you need to take all the lectures on English grammar and basics of writing. The students in this course are both native English speakers and non-native English speakers. If you pass the self-assessment English grammar test, I also explain where to skip ahead in the course so that you don't have to go through content you already know.

English grammar that deals with writing correct sentences, understanding sentence structure, and what makes a complete sentence. Sentences are a building block of writing. To do any kind of interesting writing or to understand other parts of English grammar, we must become good at writing basic sentences.

In this video, we get to practice writing sentence clauses and play with sentence fragments, complete sentences, and how to combine different sentence clauses to create complete sentences.

This video contains the answers to the exercise given in the previous video so you can check your sentences, grammar, and see if you are on the right track, or need to spend a little more time reviewing this part of English grammar.

Conjunctions are a very important part of English grammar and English writing because they help us connect parts of sentences. In your business communication, you must be able to write interesting and clear sentences, and conjunctions help you combine ideas and clauses in a single sentence.

In business communication and business writing, you don't necessarily need to write complex sentences because you need to first focus on writing clearly. And complexity is sometimes the enemy of clarity. But you should still be able to write complex sentences so you can have good command of the English language and communicate your ideas effectively. So in this video, I created some formulas for different ways of structuring sentences and where to add commas and how to use conjunctions.

Discussion of run on sentences and how to avoid them. Run on sentences are a common English grammar error made by inexperience writers. But it makes your business communication appear unprofessional because it looks like you didn't proofread or don't know the most basic rules of English grammar or writing. So it's important to fix this issue if it appears in your business communication and writing.

In this video, we get a chance to practice fixing run-on sentences so we can become better writers. This is more hands on so you can learn business writing and English grammar by doing rather than passively learning.

Run on sentences are a common error in English writing. If they creep into your business communication, it looks very bad to people reading it. Plus, they make your sentences unnecessarily confusing. So we discuss how to break them up into simpler sentences or keep the more complex by correctly using punctuation and conjunctions.

This is a chance to learn by practicing your writing. We start with example of run-on sentences and go through fixing them. This exercise will help you keep your business communication correct and with proper sentence structures.

This video goes over additional comma grammar rules, so you can use commas correctly in your business communication. We already examined comma grammar rules when we looked at how to combine sentence clauses with commas. And in this video, we look at even more different situations where you use commas in your writing and how to use commas correctly.

Exercise for practicing the comma rules you learned in this section of the course so you can improve your written business communication.

Answers to the exercise in the previous video where you got a chance to practice using commas correctly in your business communication. In this lecture you get to see whether you used commas correctly in the exercise.

This video is an example of a paragraph of text that contains many grammar errors. We go over the paragraph together and fix mistakes one-by-one while talking through them. This should help to solidify your writing skills and decrease your English grammar mistakes.

We take a product sales page from a native English speaker who should know the basics of English grammar. You would assume they have no grammar errors, but either by not being careful or by not knowing grammar, in this video, we observe many writing errors on their part and fix them.

This lecture focuses on English grammar rules for correctly using the semicolon. You may never need to use the semicolon in your business writing and business communication because in most cases it's optional. With only a slight change in the sentence, you can remove the need to use a semicolon. So even though you don't necessarily need to know how to use the semicolon, it's good to know how to use it if you ever need it.

Exercises to help you become good at using the semicolon in your writing. Again, you don't have to use semicolons in business communication, but if you want to enrich your writing, semicolons are a nice option.

We discuss how to correctly use the colon in your writing. Again, you don't have to use the colon because you can often rephrase sentences so the colon isn't needed, but it enhances your written communication skills if you know how to use the colon.

An exercise for you to practice using the colon in your writing. Hands on exercises are great for you to develop your written communication skills.

Answers to the colon writing exercise in the previous video so you can build your written communication skills and practice using elements of English grammar.

How to use quotes in your professional written business communication. Use of quotation marks is something you can't skip learning. This part of English grammar is one of the necessary business communication skills because it's used frequently.

Hands on practice exercise to use quotation marks and build that writing and communication skill.

Use of quotation marks in your written business communication. This is one of the necessary communication skills because you can't avoid using question marks.

Exercises to practice communications skills using the question marks. It's one of the more basic English grammar skills, but it comes up often, and we have to be able to use it correctly.

The hyphen is another basic English grammar element, and is one of the necessary written communication skills that comes up often. It's important to use it correctly in your writing.

More uses of the hyphen. The hyphen is a tricky part of English grammar because there are many unique cases where the hyphen is used, and when it comes to our business writing, we can't make errors with it because the errors are obvious and glaring. So we must learn all the English grammar rules associated with the hyphen.

List of common hyphenated terms to remember for use in business writing. Some parts of basic English grammar you just have to memorize, and this is one of those.

Hands on exercises to practice and reinforce your knowledge of hyphen rules so you can use it freely and confidently in your everyday business writing.

Note about the many additional writing exercises added to this course so you can improve your English grammar skills and your business writing skills, and your overall business communication skills. This video shows you how to find the 100+ additional exercises.

An hands-on exercise to help you practice your English grammar and English language punctuation skills.

Answers to the English language punctuation exercise from the last lecture so you can reinforce the communication skills and English grammar skills you learned in this section.

After you improve at English grammar, the next step is to improve your skills at choosing more effective words in your written business communication. This video is the start of the process by eliminating common word choice errors.

In this video I go over a few common word choice errors and incorrect use of common words. If you make grammar mistakes with these common words, fixing those errors in your  business writing will immediately improve your business communication.

In this video, I go over usage of common words like who and whom. It can be confusing when to use each in your writing. After this video, you will understand when and how to use each of these, and your business communication skills will immediately improve.

I discussed common misspelled words that spellcheck won't catch. Once you get these errors out of your writing, your communication skills and your business writing will improve.

Regular and irregular verbs are a difficult part of English grammar. So in this video, we go over how to best get a handle on them so you can use them confidently and correctly in your writing and business communication.

A hands-on exercise to practice English grammar and writing by fixing a number of grammar and word-choice errors.

Answers to the exercise from the previous video so you can check your writing skills to see if you fixed all the grammar errors.

Introduction video to English verb tenses. This is an important part of English grammar, and even though some parts of this can be simple, some grammar tense cases can get quite complex and unusual. This video is just an introduction to this section.

If you struggle with complex verb tenses in your English grammar and you make errors in your business writing, this video explains how to use different very forms correctly in English grammar.

This video addresses a common point of confusing in English writing and English grammar, and that is when to use gone and when to use went. This video should help you use it correctly in your business communication.

This lecture is a hands-on chance to practice using verb tenses in your business communication with an exercise. Practice in addition to theoretical knowledge helps you improve your communication skills and reinforce what you learned.

Answers to the exercise in the previous video so you can verify whether you did it correctly, and whether you have mastered this part of English grammar.

More is not better. In this video, we go over how to tighten up your writing by getting rid of unnecessary words that make your writing feel bloated.

Additional weak words and phrases that you should refrain from using in your written business communication.

Example of my own business writing from years ago to show how much worse it was. This video is meant to show that improvement is constant, and you improve your writing with practice.

Writing example of how you can take a long sentence, and edit it down to communicate the same idea, but in very few precise and well-chosen words. Such direct writing tends to be more clear, less confusing, and faster to write and read - saving everyone in your company time and effort.

Exercise to practice your writing skills of choosing the right words to use in different situations. Being able to choose ideal words that communicate the ideas you are trying to convey is an immensely important writing skill.

This is a chance to compare your answers to mine to see whether you were on the right track with the writing exercise from the previous video.

This video is an introduction to the upcoming section in which we will hone more of our business communication skills. We'll begin focusing on writing business email, which is something just about all professionals do.

This is an example of email writing and communication skills beyond writing emails. It's also an example of a correct mindset that impresses your boss with a common tactic called "underpromise and overdeliver."

We look at an example of poor business communication, and editing it to make your communication clear and easy to understand. The communication skills practiced here are clarity and focus on what's most important.

Further discussion about adding clarity and focus to your business writing and overall business communication since it's so important to be clear, succinct, and on point.

This is a template for your out of office automated response. It's good to have these because throughout your business communication, you want to manage expectations of people you communicate with, and having an out of office automated email lets people know when your response may be delayed, and what alternate options are available.

In some business communication, you have to emphasize certain points. But if you use all caps, people might think you are yelling and misunderstand what you are writing. The classic and sensible way to emphasize certain words is to use italics, and in this tutorial I go over how and when to use italics in your business writing.

Sometimes during business communication, you have to ask for something, and sometimes it's awkward and uncomfortable. In this video, I discuss how to ask for something nicely without sounding like a pushover, and how to add that type of communication to your overall business communication skills.

Sometimes in an effort to be concise and to-the-point in our business writing, we write short sentences. The problem with too many short sentences is that they can make our writing appear choppy and sometimes can even be read as having a mean tone. In this video, I discuss how to balance short and direct sentences with coming across the way you intend to in your business communication.

This is a chance to practice your business writing skills with a hands-on exercise. You can practice at your own pace, and I provide the answers in the next video.

This video provides answers to the email communication exercise from the previous video so you can check your answers.