20 Free and Paid Business Writing Training Resources
In business, writing can make or break us.
Well-crafted words can build corporations, change minds, trigger emotions, and inspire communities.
Despite these benefits, many professionals lack the writing skills they need to perform. Research shows that writing is one of the largest skill gaps.
By investing in writing training, companies close the gap and reap the rewards of clear, concise communication.
Although developing writing expertise is a lifelong process, there are practical, hands-on classes that can elevate your writing quickly.
As you develop a plan for writing training, consider these questions:
- What is the main function of your writing? Do you write to inform, influence, drive interaction, or motivate?
- What form of writing are you typically engaged in? Is your day spent on email, proposals, reports, policies, manuals, memos, audits, standard operating procedures, white papers, technical articles, or marketing copy?
- How do you like to learn? Books present in-depth comprehensive insight with space to take notes and flexibility to review later on. A live instructor offers a personalized experience with real-time feedback on your work. A video course provides engagement and ease while accommodating any schedule.
In creating your writing training program, you may develop your own course, purchase video classes, or work with a training company like Webucator.
Regardless of the type of training that you choose, consider your priorities and goals. You may need a class that teaches your employees to:
- Plan a document using free writing, brainstorming, or outlining.
- Establish a clear purpose.
- Adjust messaging for technical and non-technical audiences.
- Understand how purpose and audience affect content, tone, and format.
- Organize information in a clear and logical manner.
- Integrate transitions to improve flow and connect ideas.
- Hold the reader’s interest.
- Deliver messages using a crisp, compelling style.
- Emphasize important content and action items.
- Understand Email and IM best practices.
- Deliver negative information strategically to improve outcomes.
- Ensure that a message is clear, complete, concise, courteous, and correct.
- Incorporate information from multiple sources and contributors.
- Use correct grammar and punctuation.
- Avoid common usage errors.
- Recognize words that need to be capitalized.
- Choose and consistently use the appropriate point-of-view and tense.
- Understand and vary sentence structure.
- Maximize active voice.
- Implement proofreading strategies to ensure error-free writing.
Students in Webucator writing classes come from various backgrounds and job roles. Business executives, managers, administrative assistants, engineers, marketing professionals, web developers, technical writers, and others join our classes to sharpen their skills. When business professionals come to us for writing training, many request a “refresher to fix common mistakes.” Some customers need help creating clear, usable technical documents. Others want to create compelling content for their website.
Regardless of individual needs, most aspiring writers ultimately want to confidently write clear, compelling, concise, and error-free documents.
Luckily, anyone can learn to write well. With the right resources and plenty of practice, writing gets easier.
So, which resources will you need? Let’s find out.
Types of Writing Training
The web is bursting with instructional books, websites, videos, style guides, and live instructors that share writing strategies, rules, and tricks. This article shares the best instructional resources for many types of writing including:
- General Business Writing: These courses improve your overall professional writing style.
- Writing and Grammar: These resources help you avoid the most common errors and grammatical problems that plague business professionals.
- Copywriting: These courses offer best-practices and strategies for creating impressive, engaging copy.
- Email Writing and Email Etiquette: These courses give you practical methods for improving your daily email communication.
- Technical Writing: These courses show you how to create clear, effective technical documents.
- Additional Resources: These books offer advice on other writing topics such as persuasion, nonfiction, storytelling, and more.
Ready to find the perfect picks for your writing training program? Dive into this list of resources, so you can get started today!
General Business Writing Training
Business Writing for Dummies by Natalie Canavor
Paid Book
This 400+ page book guides you through the writing process from start to finish. The book provides general writing tips as well as specific guidelines for email, reports, proposals, executive summaries, digital content, and more. Keep this book available for constant reference because it has a bit of everything!
High-Impact Business Writing from University of California
Free Course (with Paid Add-Ons Available)
It’s very hard to find a great free business writing course. After hours of digging, we discovered the High-Impact Business Writing class from University of California. The training includes videos, readings, slides, and quizzes. You can choose to audit the course for free, which gives you access to all of the content. In order to submit your quizzes and receive a certificate, you need to pay a fee. Take this course if you want free content and do not need a certificate.
Webucator Business Writing Basics
Paid Instructor-Led Class – Live Virtual or Onsite Classroom
In this business writing class, a live instructor will show you strategies for conveying a clear, crisp message. You will practice organizing information, using appropriate business tone, and changing your content for different audiences. Take this class and start writing with confidence!
Webucator Business Writing for Executives
Paid Instructor-Led Class – Live Virtual or Onsite Classroom
Need an advanced class for executive correspondence? This class is taught by a highly respected instructor who has trained senior leadership at Fortune 100 companies and federal government agencies. After taking this class, you will be saving time while writing messages that are clear, crisp, and compelling.
Writing and Grammar Courses for Professionals
Mastering Business Writing and Grammar from DocStoc
Free YouTube Course
This free business writing and grammar course exposes common writing errors and shows how to correct them. The 36 videos cover topics like commas, subject-verb agreement, capitalization, acronyms, and more. Each lesson delivers quick tips and grammar rules in less than three minutes, making it an easy course to digest all at once or in bite-sized chunks.
Free Online Resource
One of the most popular writing resources on the internet, Purdue OWL provides easily accessible rules and best practices. Be sure to bookmark the search page (https://owl.purdue.edu/search.html) and the site map (https://owl.purdue.edu/site_map.html). Due to the size of the website, you will need those tools to navigate through the many pages and resources.
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
Paid Book
Many professional writers view The Elements of Style as the holy grail of writing. Time named it on their All-TIME 100 Nonfiction Books list in 2011, and Open Syllabus Project named it one of the most frequently used books in U.S. academic syllabi. This guide includes usage rules, composition principles, misused words and expressions, and other essential topics.
Webucator Writing and Grammar Instructor-Led Course
Paid Instructor-Led Class – Live Virtual or Onsite Classroom
Want hands-on practice with an expert? Take a live class from Webucator. This 1-day course uncovers the most common writing mistakes and shows how to correct them. You will learn about grammar and punctuation rules, common usage errors, correct sentence structure, and important proofreading strategies.
Copywriting Resources
Copywriting Quick Start: Top FREE Writing Tools & Hacks
Free Video Course
Need a quick crash course on copywriting? Professional writer Tyler Speegle offers 36 minutes of instruction to get you started. Speegle’s tools and tricks will help you save time and ease your copywriting woes.
Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman
Paid Book
This timeless guide will take you from copywriting zero to copywriting hero. Along with information and advice, Joseph Sugarman offers inspiration. His stories about achieving impossible sales through well-written copy will inspire any copywriter.
Copywriting Secrets by Len Smith and Sean Kaye
Paid Video Course
Packed with helpful tips and “ah-ha” moments, this course will change both your writing and your thought process. Len Smith provides best practices, and then he backs them up with research, data, and facts. This course expands beyond sales copywriting. It offers advice for writing press releases, case studies, web copy, and white papers. Len Smith presents straight-forward strategies with amusing illustrations to make the concepts stick.
Email Writing and Email Etiquette Courses
Barry Mohn’s Professional Email Writing Course
Paid Video Course
Tired of endless email chains and confusing correspondence? Barry Mohn’s video course teaches you to write clear emails that get results. You will learn to grab the readers’ attention, convey information respectfully, and emphasize action items. Although this is a video-based course, you will be writing constantly as you complete the hands-on exercises throughout the course.
Webucator Email Etiquette Course
Paid Instructor-Led Class – Live Virtual or Onsite Classroom
“Wow” your customers and co-workers with direct, professional emails. In this class, you will work with a live instructor to improve your email communication. You will learn to create effective subject lines, use a polite tone, choose appropriate language and text, and check your grammar and punctuation. One day in class with the instructor gives you the confidence and the skills needed to write powerful, impressive emails!
Technical Writing Classes
Webucator Technical Writing Classes
- Professional Technical Writing Class
- Webucator Policy, Process, and Procedure Writing Class
Paid Instructor-Led Classes – Live Virtual or Onsite Classroom
When creating technical documents, clear communication and holding the reader’s attention make all the difference. These classes from Webucator help you to develop documents that any audience can easily understand. Get hands-on practice and immediate feedback from an expert in these live classes.
Technical Writing Course from Google
Free Self-Paced Tutorials
Google offers free access to a portion of their Technical Writing course. You can complete all of the Technical Writing course pre-work that they assign to their staff engineers. The tutorials include editing for correct grammar, using active voice, constructing clear sentences, adding lists and tables, considering your audience, creating attention-grabbing openers, and more.
Additional Resources
Stephen King once said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
In the spirit of Stephen King’s advice, we will leave you with a few more books to add to your reading list.
Writing to Persuade: How to Bring People Over to Your Side by Trish Hall
Trish Hall, former editor of the New York Times Op-Ed Page, shares years of persuasive-writing experience in this instructional guide. This book will help any professional bring others to their side through writing.
Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
Handley’s book stands out and shines with her hundreds of practical tips and realistic approach. She guides writers past bland, simple high school writing formulas into more sophisticated and engaging writing strategies.
The Art of Writing Nonfiction by Andre Fontaine and William A. Glavin Jr.
Fontaine and Glavin offer insight and advice for making nonfiction writing clear, concise, and engaging. While topics are most applicable to blogging, marketing, and journalism, any writer will benefit from the advice in this book.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Stephen King is one of the wealthiest and best-selling authors of all time for a reason: he’s a fantastic writer. In his memoir, On Writing, he shares all of the writing techniques that make his books so addictive.
Your Writing Training Action Plan
Ready to create your action plan? As you develop a writing training program for your organization, consider using several methods to support your employees. From video courses to live instructor workshops, there’s a solution for everyone.
Interested in a quick chat about writing training? Reach out to us! We’ll help you find the perfect course quickly.