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Article Excerpt
TODAY'S BUSINESSES generate large quantities of information, making it increasingly important for managers to summarize much of that information so that busy executives can learn about important issues quickly. While the ability to summarize is key to business survival, studies show that few people know how to summarize well (Hill, 1991; Ratteary, 1989). This article discusses the effectiveness of an initiative designed to teach first-year business students to summarize, or abstract, what they have read. The abstract writing initiative is part of a comprehensive writing plan developed for a first-year business course called Gateway to Business. In this article, we briefly describe the course and writing plan as context for describing our approach to teaching students to summarize, our abstract writing assignment, and our assessment of its effectiveness.
Gateway to Business Course and Writing Plan
The Gateway to Business course was developed to integrate writing and critical thinking into the business curriculum, while enhancing the first-year experience. The course is team taught by four instructors, utilizing a standardized curriculum. Each section of the course is facilitated by a section instructor from the business faculty, who is responsible for teaching and implementing assignments and experiential activities in the areas of critical thinking, writing, and teamwork. Instructors are assisted by two undergraduate teaching assistants assigned to each section. The teaching assistants act as peer coaches and mentors to the students and add to the administrative efficiency of the course by grading some of the homework assignments and taking attendance.
Writing is used extensively in the Gateway to Business course, taking numerous disciplinary forms and fulfilling a range of discourse purposes. Particular attention is paid, however, to four specific areas: writing to learn, learning to write, collaborative writing, and developing presentation skills. (See Figure 1 for a summary of the Gateway to Business writing plan.)
Figure 1. Gateway to Business Writing Plan I. Writing to Learn * Journal Writing II. Learning to Write * Abstract writing * Industry analysis * Resume/portfolio development III. Collaborative Writing * Industry Analysis * Team Charter IV. Speaking in the Discipline * Oral Presentation * Classroom Discussion * Small Group Discussion
The primary purpose of the writing-to-learn assignments is to have writers explain concepts or ideas to themselves, to ask questions, and to make connections (Allen & Enz, 1987; McLeod & Maimon, 2000). Students are asked to submit a weekly journal entry, a writing-to-learn assignment where students reflect on lecture topics, assigned readings, and experiential recitation activities.
Learning-to-write assignments emphasize the following discourse-specific skills: summarization and abstraction; critical evaluation, analysis, and persuasion; and learning to write with the brevity and clarity that is so key to communication in today's business environment. In addition to the abstract writing assignment, students participate in a semester-long research project that requires them to research various aspects of an industry of their choosing (see Appendix A). The research assignment is divided into manageable components that include an outline, bibliography, abstracts of research articles, and rough and final drafts. Resume and portfolio development are activities that enable students to begin to put together the material they will need to apply for internships and an eventual career in business.
In order to develop students' collaborative writing skills and expose students to the collaborative nature of business, the industry research report is assigned as a team project. Team efforts culminate in a single research report that embodies the blended work of all the members. In addition, each team drafts its own charter as a formal agreement among members, documenting responsibilities and expectations (Cox & Bobrowski, 1999). Finally, each team has an opportunity to present its research projects orally in a professional manner at the end of the semester. Student oral communication skills are further developed through classroom and small group discussion. A more detailed discussion of the Gateway to Business course and writing plan can be found in a forthcoming article (Cox, Bobrowski, & Spector, forthcoming). We focus our discussion in this article on abstract writing, a learning-to-write assignment.
Assignment Rationale
We have chosen to focus on abstract writing in this article because we believe that the ability to summarize is a crucial skill in today's business world and, therefore, should be emphasized throughout the business curriculum, beginning in the freshman year. Business writing reflects the values of the workplace; whereas a creative writing assignment might encourage experimentation with language, business writing emphasizes clear, concise phrasing because that is what makes the most effective communication between people who work in organizations (Murdick, 1999). In one study, business executives surveyed said they looked for the following in the writing of their subordinates: clear, brief, correct sentences; adequate statement of purpose; and emphasis on main points (Feinberg & Pritzker, 1985).
The importance to managers of learning to summarize information is stressed in a number of practitioner journals and in a variety of business disciplines, including accounting (Danziger, 1997), finance (Shroeder, 1990), and supervision (Kenyon, 1988; Ratteary, 1989). A study comparing successful students in upper-class management classes with unsuccessful students found that...
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