It is interesting that even companies who seem to be more technical – Canon, Citigroup, Motorola – all place a high value on good writing. All say it is very important to be able to communicate clearly and in a persuasive way through writing. Writing is not as stressed in business courses so it is rare to have really great business writers today. Most companies had tests or other processed in the interview to assess the quality of candidates speaking and writing skills. For employees, the companies offered classes to improve skills. Poor writing costs companies time and money, so they actually spend some money making sure that that does not happen.
Another interesting point is that there is so much competition right now for the written word: e-mail, tv ads, newspapers, etc. So it is especially important today to have good writers that can make a piece stand out and communicate in an efficient, concise way. Because e-mail and other forms of communication are spontaneous, writers need to be developed to where they don’t have to spend a lot of time rewriting, and general grammar rules should be up to par because there may not be enough time to go through editing before it is published on the web.
