Business writing tasks on the topic of “Success and failure”

Market Leader Upper Intermediate

Choose one or more of the tasks below and email it to your teacher or give the piece of writing to him or her in the next class. You could choose the topic which is most connected to your work or area of business, or you could choose a genre that you often write or most need to improve.

Write a report recommending ways in which your company (or any real or imaginary company) can improve its success in one or several parts of its business

Write the agenda for a meeting analysing why something went wrong, e.g. a product launch

Write a press release announcing an important success by your (real or imaginary) company

Write a memo to all staff in your department (or any department of any real or imaginary company) telling them that they should copy what a successful businessman says or does

Write a CV (= resume) and/ or a cover letter (= letter of communication) concentrating on your (real or imaginary) personal and business achievements

Write an email to a company you do business with congratulating them on a success

Write a diplomatic email to a company enquiring about rumours that they are in financial trouble

Write a contract between two companies involved in a joint venture that spreads the rewards of success and risks of failure evenly

Write a profile/ biography of a successful or unsuccessful businessman, business or product

Write a letter of apology, accepting responsibility for a business or other failure.

Write PowerPoint slides for a presentation on why something went wrong.

Write a section of a manual or instruction booklet saying how to avoid common mistakes.

Write a notice to be put next to shared computers with rules on how they should be used.

Write a text (= SMS) telling someone that you didn’t understand the last text from them, e.g. because of emoticons and abbreviations.

Write a letter of complaint, complaining about bad communication skills of the staff you had to deal with, e.g. rudeness from customer service staff or inadequate English language skills from hotel staff or others

Write part of a brochure, pamphlet or flyer for a course to develop staff or manager communication skills

Points you could include in the tasks above:

• Avoiding sexist language
• Use of email and phones for business and pleasure
• How to answer the phone
• Politeness
• Cultural differences in communication (body language, silence, eye contact, taboo topics etc)
• How communications can break down
• What makes a good communicator, e.g. adjectives describing good and bad communicators

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PDF version for easy printing: businesswritingsuccess