The courses with lessons, activities, and competency examinations are much like on-campus courses. However, instead of listening to lectures, you read them. You have an online syllabus with links to lessons. You go through the lessons by reading assignments that are online or in books, completing activities to practice the skills, and completing written competency examinations so your instructor can evaluate your skills. The courses are self-pacing, so you decide when to finish lessons. You may work on the lessons from anywhere in the world.

In these courses, you have an instructor assigned to you. As you go through the course, you may send e-mail to the instructor at any time. If you would like to speak with the instructor, you may call. If the instructor isn't available, he or she will call back as soon as possible.

The lessons have practice activities. You complete the practice activities and send them by e-mail to your instructor. The instructor writes comments on them to let you know how you did on mastering the skills. If you need to learn a skill, the instructor explains what you need to learn and returns the assignment to you by e-mail. The instructor may ask you to revise the activity to practice a skill and send it back. The instructor will coach you in this way until you master the skills.

The instructor will comment on anything in your writing that you need to correct, including punctuation, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, paragraphs, and the structure of the e-mail, memo, letter, or report.

The courses with lessons contain competency examinations you complete as you go through the course, including an exam at the end that shows your mastery of all of the skills. The exams are writing tasks you may complete using case studies in the exams or a document you’re actually writing at work. The exam documents may be e-mails, memos, letters, or reports, depending on which you want to focus on. Your instructor evaluates the document and sends comments to you. If you need to learn a skill, your instructor will coach you through learning it until you have mastered the skill.

When you have demonstrated mastery of the skills taught in the course, you graduate and receive a graduation certificate with our gold seal on it for framing.

In the courses with pre-tests and post-tests, you have an instructor assigned to you. As you go through the course, you may send e-mail to the instructor or call the instructor at any time. If the instructor isn't available, he or she will call back as soon as possible.

You have a syllabus with links to lessons. In these courses, you read assignments that are online or in books, just as you would when you go to class for an on-campus course. For each lesson, you complete a pre-test before reading the lesson to let you know your level of proficiency before reading the lesson. You then read the training in the lesson. For some lessons, you complete practice activities to help you master the skills. After you have read the assignments, you take a post-test. You must score a 70% on the post-test to go to the next lesson, but we advise you to work at scoring 80% to 100%. If you have a lower score, you must study the lesson and take the test again until you pass it.

Your instructor evaluates your tests to see whether you need help with any skills. If you do, he or she will send you an e-mail with additional training.

When you have passed all of the post-tests for the course, you graduate and receive a graduation certificate with our gold seal on it for framing.

Language usage includes grammar, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure. In the individualized language usage courses, the instructor evaluates samples of your writing to find out what you need to learn and assigns activities to teach you the skills. The courses are self-pacing, so you decide when to finish lessons. You may work on the lessons from anywhere in the world.

Your instructor works with you extensively during the course. As you go through the course, you may send e-mail to the instructor at any time. If you would like to speak with the instructor, you may call at any time. If the instructor isn't available, he or she will call back as soon as possible.

You go through five training cycles, like five mini-courses. For each cycle, your instructor reads a sample of your writing to identify skills you need to learn. Your instructor lists the sentences containing problems in each area, shows you how they should have been written, assigns a reading from the grammar textbook, answers any questions you have about the skill, has you practice the skill if you had several errors in it, and gives you an online quiz containing sentences from your original writing sample that you must correct to be sure you have learned the skills.  You have unlimited access to the instructor in the course.

When you have demonstrated mastery of the skills taught in the course, you graduate and receive a graduation certificate with our gold seal on it for framing.

In the individualized writing coaching courses, the instructor evaluates samples of your writing to identify what you need to learn and sends you an assessment of your writing strengths and weaknesses. You correspond with the instructor about your goals for the course, and you and the instructor decide the skills you will focus on learning during the course. The courses are self-pacing, so you decide when to finish lessons. You may work on the lessons from anywhere in the world.

Your instructor assigns readings and activities to help you learn the skills. You submit writing samples to practice the skills. They may be actual documents you're writing as part of your normal work activities. Your instructor comments on your use of the skills and coaches you through learning anything with which you might be having a problem. Your instructor works with you extensively during the course, so as you go through the course, you may send e-mail to the instructor at any time. If you would like to speak with the instructor, you may call. If the instructor isn't available, he or she will call back as soon as possible.

When you have demonstrated mastery of the skills taught in the course, you graduate and receive a graduation certificate with our gold seal on it for framing.

In the self-instructional courses, you have unlimited access to the course materials for your own use with your user name and password.  The courses have no instructor access.  The courses are self-pacing, so you decide when to finish lessons. You may work on the lessons from anywhere in the world. If you have technical questions about accessing the materials, you may send an e-mail to publications@businesswriting.com. 

If you later want to enroll in the Business Writing Center full course with instructor contact and instructor evaluations of your writing samples and activities, we apply the tuition for the self-study course to the corresponding instructor-led course. 

Because there is no instructor contact, you receive no graduation certificate for completing a self-instructional course.