Business Writer

This study helps you develop the skills to master the following course competency:

• Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.

Activity Instructions

Two key competencies that will help you throughout your academic program and business career are the abilities to communicate effectively in writing and to work accurately and effectively with quantitative data. In this study, you will complete a self-assessment in aspects of each: the Wonderlic Writing Assessment and an assessment of your skill in using Microsoft Excel. While neither of these is a comprehensive assessment of your competency, both can serve as initial indicators of where you might want to devote some time and effort to build skills. Your results from these assessments can help you determine resources to enhance your skills and create a plan to address any weaknesses or potential areas for growth.

Complete the following tasks in preparation:

• Review the tutorial Basic Tasks in Excel 2013.
• Take the Excel assessment. We will not use most of the advanced Excel features in this course, but you will as you move along in your program; taking the time now to consider your skills will be valuable.
• Submit the Wonderlic Writing Assessment, following the instructions below.

Instructions – Writing Assessment

This assessment activity provides the opportunity to receive feedback on your writing skills. What you learn from the results of this assessment will help you plan ways to improve those skills.

For this writing assessment, you will write a 1–2-page persuasive essay in response to the following:

Many people have argued that the skills needed to be successful in today's workforce have changed. What skills do you feel an individual needs to be successful in a job today? Why do you feel these skills are most important? In an essay to be read by your instructor, identify the skills you feel are most needed by an individual to be successful at work and provide reasons to persuade your instructor that these are the most critical skills for success.

Although the question is posed in a very general way ("the skills needed to be successful in today's workforce"), you can make the activity more meaningful by writing specifically about the skills that are needed for success in your profession or the job to which you aspire.

Then, submit this essay to EITHER ONE of the following two assessment services: Smarthinking or Wonderlic. 

SMARTHINKING: Smarthinking is an excellent tool, which Capella provides you free of charge and allows your work to be reviewed by a live tutor. You will have access to Smarthinking in every course in your program, and later in this course, so using it now gives you an advantage in that it will be easier to make use of the tool later. Read more about Smarthinking here and submit your essay for review.

This essay will be machine-graded, using an artificial intelligence program. You will have only one opportunity to submit this essay for grading.

WONDERLIC: With Wonderlic your essay will be machine-graded, using an artificial intelligence program. You will have only one opportunity to submit this essay for grading. To use Wonderlic read the following:

To understand the criteria that the artificial intelligence program will use to grade your essay, review the Wonderlic 6-Point Persuasive Writing Rubric.

Please follow these instructions:

• Compose your 1–2-page essay, a response to the prompt, in MS Word. Before submitting, you might want to use MS Word's spelling and grammar-checking functions, just as you would when composing any other course paper.
• Save a copy of your essay to your own files.
• Disable any pop-up blocker that is active in your Internet browser. A pop-up blocker will prevent your essay from being submitted. (Note: The process for disabling pop-ups varies depending on your browser, but it is usually simply unchecking a box in your Options menu or clicking to "allow pop-ups" for a specific Web site. If you need assistance, Learner Support can help: 1-888-capella.)
• Click Wonderlic Essay Submission to submit your assessment within our Wonderlic vendor's Web site.
• Copy the text of your essay and paste it into the essay submission box. Submit the essay to Wonderlic. If you experience problems with this step, review Troubleshooting for Wonderlic Essay Submission.
• You will receive the machine-grading of your essay via Writing Assessments Results within two days of your submission.
• Review the recommendations for areas of improvement to prepare for the first discussion in Unit 1.