Writing and Communication Skills for the Workplace: Grammar and Style

The UBC Micro-certificate in Writing and Communication Skills for the Workplace: Grammar and Style provides essential skills to help enhance your writing and career by improving your accuracy, impact and style. Build foundational skills you can apply to your professional and personal writing. Learn to avoid common mistakes, and refine and elevate your own and others’ writing.

By the end of this program, you’ll be able to:

• detect and fix grammatical errors in your writing and produce clear, concise prose
• apply fundamental rules of writing to produce text that is correct, coherent, emphatic and elegant
• revise text by analyzing and diagnosing common problems
• identify and correct inconsistencies and weaknesses in your own writing and in others’
• apply processes for editing and proofreading
• understand how tools such as style guides, style sheets and dictionaries can make you a better, faster editor
• analyze your readers’ needs in a variety of contexts and understand how to use plain language to meet those needs

This program is for anyone who wants to build foundational writing skills that can be applied to their work, or anyone who writes or presents regularly as part of their job.

All levels are welcome. Those with beginner to advanced writing skills can benefit from the program. The thorough, well-crafted courses in the program offer new concepts and approaches that can round out your writing skills.

Each course costs $420–$705. The total cost of the program is approximately $1,950-$2,040 depending on the stream you select and the number of courses you take. You can pay for one course at a time.

All fees are in Canadian dollars and subject to change. Fees are subject to GST where applicable. Fees may be paid by Visa®, Visa® Debit, Mastercard®, American Express®, money order or certified cheque.

For details on UBC’s payment policies, please see Refunds, Cancellations and Transfers.

The program consists of four courses of three to six weeks each. Combined, the courses take approximately 66 hours to complete. You must complete all courses in your selected stream within 18 months to receive the micro-certificate. The recommended order is to complete Writing Well: Grammar and Writing Well: Style first, followed by the other two courses in the order that works best with your schedule.

Courses taken since January 1, 2022 may be retroactively applied to the program. Simply enrol in the remaining course(s) to compete the micro-certificate.

Required Courses

The UBC Micro-certificate in Writing and Communication Skills for the Workplace: Grammar and Style is a part-time 100% online program that consists of four courses ranging from three to six weeks each. Some courses include real-time classes and/or weekly virtual office hours.

You work through weekly course modules on your own time. For courses with a real-time component, log in to your class at scheduled times and participate by video conferencing. Instructors provide feedback on your assignments to help you grow your skills, and some may offer virtual office hours, giving you an opportunity to ask questions. You also have access to a forum in which you can post and discuss questions with other students and course instructors.

Expected effort

Each course requires approximately 15 to 30 hours of study. Expect to spend a minimum of three to five hours per week on each course including readings, exercises, homework, online discussions and real-time lectures (where applicable).

You must complete all courses within 18 months to receive the micro-certificate.

Textbooks

There are no textbooks required for this program. Individual courses may include recommended textbooks.

Technology requirements

To take this program, you need access to:

• an email account
• a computer, laptop or tablet, using Windows or macOS
• the latest version of a web browser (or previous major version release)
• a reliable internet connection
• a video camera and microphone (to access real-time classes and/or virtual office hours)

Assessment

This courses in this program are marked complete/incomplete based on your participation. Your instructor provides personalized feedback on the assignments you hand in. To earn your micro-certificate, you must achieve 80% participation, which includes submitting assignments, attending any scheduled classes and contributing to discussions.

Obtaining your micro-certificate

If you have completed all of the courses, fill out this form to request your micro-credential.

• Iva Cheung