Learn how to perfect your professional writing skills to promote clear, organized, and engaging messages for print, social media, and digital environments.
This short course provides adult learners with the skills they need to write effectively in digital and print-based business environments. Writing is a daily and integral part of professional life. The demand for professionals who can communicate clearly and effectively to various audiences remains high and presents a recipe for success in nearly every profession.
Here, we examine how to identify the purpose or goals of the messages we wish to convey, analyze our audience to keep them engaged, and write clear and persuasive prose. In most workplaces, we are likely to write in a collaborative team environment. Here, we explore how to use available communication channels – blogs, contracts, emails, reports, presentations, press releases, social media posts, and more – for maximum impact. We also learn how to edit and proofread documents so they are presented in a polished, competent, and professional way.
- Unit 1: Know Your Purpose
- Unit 2: Know Your Audience and Communication Channel
- Unit 3: Drafting Your Message
- Unit 4: Polishing Your Writing
- Identify the purpose of your writing among the major genres of professional writing;
- Adapt your message to reach different contexts and audiences;
- Combine your understanding of your audience and purpose to write effectively through a chosen channel;
- Explain how to avoid common ethical problems in professional writing; and
- Explain editorial strategies for revising and improving documents.
Learn the importance of setting goals, delegating tasks, and prioritizing your work to help you manage your time and enhance workplace productivity.
Time and stress management are two basic components of success. Our challenge is to budget our time wisely and create a system to identify, evaluate, and eliminate personal and work-based distractors and stressors. This course teaches you how to manage your time and reduce stress in your life.
Unit 1 introduces the concepts of time management and strategies for managing your use of time in your daily life. Unit 2 discusses ways that time management strategies help us become more productive and engaged workers – whether we are working by ourselves or with others. Unit 3 introduces the concepts of stress management and strategies for reducing stress in our work and daily lives.
- Unit 1: Time Management
- Unit 2: Enhancing Workplace Productivity
- Unit 3: Stress Management
- Discuss the importance of time management and describe techniques to foster a better quality of output, more productivity, and efficiency;
- Identify the factors that are important to enhance goal-setting outcomes; and
- Describe how to implement time management and stress management skills to reduce or prevent stress, maintain good health, and increase productivity.
Explore how to write a coherent, persuasive grant proposal to obtain funding for a project or initiative by focusing on topics like the basics of nonprofit organizations, how to interpret RFPs, the elements of a grant proposal, and how to find funding sources and build relationships with funders.
In this course, we explore how to write a coherent, persuasive grant proposal to obtain funding for a project or initiative. We focus on nonprofit organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) since they frequently depend on grant funding to support their mission. We begin by introducing the basics of nonprofit organizations, why they need funding, and the steps in the process of acquiring funding. We explore how to interpret calls for funding, known as requests for proposals (RFPs), followed by a step-by-step examination of the elements of a grant proposal, from writing the abstract to the evaluation plan. Then, we examine how to find funding sources and build relationships with funders that may support your organization. Finally, we review practical tips to help you write and revise your proposal.
By the end of the course, you should have the tools to craft a strong grant proposal. While most of the references we offer are specific to the United States, the principles of writing a grant proposal are relevant to most countries.
- Unit 1: Nonprofit Organizations and Grant Funding
- Unit 2: The Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for Applications (RFA)
- Unit 3: Key Elements of a Grant Proposal
- Unit 4: Researching, Approaching, and Maintaining a Relationship with a Grant-Funding Source
- Unit 5: Writing Your Grant Proposal
- Characterize nonprofit organizations and how they acquire grant funding;
- Summarize calls for grant funding and how grant applications are typically assessed;
- Describe the key elements of a grant proposal and how to create your funding request;
- Identify potential sources of grant funding and explain how to develop relationships with funders; and
- Apply useful tips for writing and revising your grant proposal.
Develop a criteria framework for finding, evaluating, analyzing, and using information ethically by determining currency, relevancy, authority, accuracy, and purpose, and ultimately integrating sources into your writing to support your argument.
This course will help you use information ethically by evaluating your sources to ensure you are selecting the most accurate, credible, and relevant information for your project, whether you are writing a research paper as part of an academic program, compiling research for a business report, or writing a magazine or journal article. When evaluating information, you should consider its currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. The information you choose and utilize to support your writing reflects well or poorly on you since your audience judges whether you are a thorough academic researcher, reliable contract employee, or credible journalist.
We begin in Unit 1 by reviewing the research process to better understand what you can expect and will need to complete to be a successful researcher. In Unit 2, you will understand how to evaluate the sources you found as part of the research process and apply specific evaluation methods. Unit 3 will expand your understanding of assessing information, focusing on websites. In Unit 4, you will learn how to integrate your research and the sources you have found into your writing ethically, including citing your sources.
- Unit 1: The Research Process
- Unit 2: How to Evaluate Sources
- Unit 3: Special Considerations for Evaluating Online Sources
- Unit 4: Integrating Sources into Your Writing
- Explain the importance of checking your sources;
- Develop a criteria framework to evaluate, analyze, and rate sources;
- Explain the special considerations involved in critically evaluating online sources; and
- Describe how to integrate research into writing in an ethical manner.
Explore the basics of financial literacy, personal money management, financial planning, and investment strategies. Applications in personal finance include creating financial goals, budgeting and saving, consumer credit, loans and debt, personal bankruptcy, insurance, investment and retirement, mutual funds, the stock market, taxes, fraud, and sustainability.
In this course, we explore the basics of financial literacy, emphasizing personal money management, financial planning, and investment strategies. Applications in personal finance include creating financial goals, budgeting and saving, consumer credit, loans and debt, personal bankruptcy, insurance, investment and retirement, mutual funds, the stock market, taxes, fraud, and sustainability.
We will explore the foundational aspects of financial literacy and provide a rich, practical understanding that prepares learners to navigate financial decisions, economic uncertainties, and personal disruptions in a globalized world.
The 2012 Standard and Poor's Global FinLit Survey discovered knowledge gaps among demographic groups. Men, young people, wealthy individuals, and bank account holders are more financially literate than their social counterparts – women, the poor and elderly, and those lacking bank accounts (the unbanked).
We discuss the connection between financial illiteracy and poverty. We can bridge this divide by sharing our research and investing in sustainable solutions. Students should use what they learn in the course with indigenous knowledge systems to affect meaningful change in their communities through education, capacity building, skills transfer, and advocacy.
- Unit 1: Establishing Financial Goals
- Unit 2: Budgeting and Saving
- Unit 3: Credit Cards and Consumer Borrowing
- Unit 4: Loans and Debt
- Unit 5: Insurance
- Unit 6: Investing and Retirement
- Unit 7: Taxes and Tax Forms
- Unit 8: Careers and Education
- Unit 9: Financial Scams and Fraud
- Unit 10: Trends in Global Finance
- Outline how to prepare a personal budget and the financial benefits of saving;
- Define credit score and the benefits and risks of consumer credit options;
- Explain common terms and conditions consumers adopt when they borrow money and manage debt;
- Discuss the types and terms of various insurance plans consumers and businesses purchase to protect themselves, their families, and their property;
- Describe strategies for increasing the value of savings and investments as you plan for retirement;
- Explain the purpose, benefits, and costs of paying and managing taxes;
- Discuss how career planning, education, and training affect your financial future;
- Identify frauds and scams and ways to safeguard your personal information and money; and
- Discuss how technology, socially responsible investing (SRI), and the environmental, social, and government (ESG) movement have affected global financial markets.
Develop the application materials you need for today's job market by honing your resume writing skills, learning how to create an impressive resume or improve the one you already have, and getting suggestions for writing an effective cover letter.
Prepare to ace professional job interviews by learning about interview preparation, interview methods, and how to effectively showcase your qualifications and leave a lasting impression on employers.
Learn about typical workplace etiquette protocols, communication standards, and cultural awareness strategies in order to navigate common workplace obstacles as smoothly as possible.
