PITFALLS OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING – THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES IN WRITING FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES

Abstract

The present research looks into the most common inadvertencies that occur in professional writing – more specifically, in writing for business purposes. Against the background of the labour market requirements for professionals equipped with sound writing skills – perceived as ‘deal makers or breakers’ – the paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of business written assignments of students from an English-taught Business Administration programme organised by the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. The analysis reveals that, despite students being highly proficient users of the target language, they nonetheless stumble upon challenges that pertain not to accuracy and correctness, but to extraneous factors such as appropriateness, flexibility, conciseness, relevance and deference. In the following, we shall attempt to shed light on these inadvertencies and highlight the aspects to be taken into account when writing in a business context.