Purpose of this Toolkit - Griffith University

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Graduates’ and students’ comments
“When you are writing at uni you tend to write in a format that lecturers expect. But when you
get out in the workforce you are actually writing for a different kind of population and you
can’t approach it [as if] you are writing a prac or an assignment.”
(Griffith Graduate, 2002)
“My written communication skills are constantly improving at uni because I receive feedback
on my written assignments, which helps me to make improvements on my writing style. I find
that my writing skills are very useful in my part-time work because I have to write lots of
memos to my manager to express all sorts of details about the shift. I am able to write these in
a concise and informative manner, which is appreciated by my manager.”
(Griffith student)
“In the courses I’ve done, we’ve been taught to always ask ourselves: ‘From what point of view
am I writing this? Who is going to read this?’ ”
Student handout—Employers, graduates and students
(Griffith student)
Research findings
“Literacy skills and written business communication skills were rated as being very important
by the employers participating in an AC Nielsen research project conducted in Australia in
1999. It was found that job applicants who had poor skills in this area did not fare well when
seeking positions.”
AC Nielsen Research Services. (1999). Employer Satisfaction with Graduate Skills. Department of
Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Canberra: AGPS.
http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip99-7/eip99_7pdf.pdf
“Effectively, we are looking for people who can write in almost a bullet-point form. We are no
longer really looking for people who can write wonderfully flowing twenty-five page
documents, which take two hours to read.”
Employer interviewed in: Harvey, L., Moon, S., & Geall, V. (1997). Graduates’ Work: Organisational
Change and Student Attributes. Accessed on the World Wide Web on 2 March, 2002:
http://www.uce.ac.uk/crq/publications/gw/gwcon.html
“Employers want graduates who can write for a variety of audiences. Graduates may be
experienced in producing academic texts such as essays, laboratory reports and dissertations,
but they are not always proficient in other forms of written communication, especially business
communication…”
Employer interviewed in: Harvey, L., Moon, S., & Geall, V. (1997). Graduates’ Work: Organisational
Change and Student Attributes. Accessed on the World Wide Web on 2 March, 2002:
http://www.uce.ac.uk/crq/publications/gw/gwcon.html
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