Acknowledgements

This work is dedicated to all students with the sincerest hopes that they find personal and professional success in a world that feels much more uncertain than when I was on that side of the desk.

Professional Writing and Communications for Business was only possible because of the OER Program at UWGB. Special thanks go to the directors of that program, especially Kate Farley, whose patience, collaboration, and memes made the development of this project a joy.

Thanks also go out to Carli Reinecke, our OER Librarian, who has proven to be a dedicated advocate of open-access resources and an invaluable guide in forming this work.

Special thanks also go out to Dr. Jennie Young, who took a gamble by replacing the textbook for WF 200 with this project.

Thanks to Dr. Paul Belanger, whose course materials helped determine which subjects to focus on. Since this project began, we’ve begun redesigning WF 200 to be more adaptive to generative AI, and his guidance and contributions are peppered throughout (most significantly, the “four-eyed” model used to organize this resource.

One of the priorities of this project has been to provide the flexibility to respond to trends and technologies, and this latest phase of the information age should ensure constant updates.

My thanks go out to all the individuals and teams whose efforts helped me develop Professional Writing and Communications for Business. To expedite matters, portions of two exceptional OER have been incorporated into this work: Professional Writing Today, by Sam Schecter, and Technical and Professional Writing Genres, by Michael Beilfuss, Staci Bettes, and Katrina Peterson.

Other Creative Commons-licensed works have also been used as well as resources from our UW-Green Bay campus. The list of these resources follows:

• Beilfuss, M., Bettes S., and Peterson, K. Technical and professional writing genres. PressBooks. https://open.library.okstate.edu/technicalandprofessionalwriting/​
• Schecter, S. Professional writing today: A functional approach. PressBooks. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/communicating/​
• ​University of Wisconsin-Green Department of Bay Career Planning & Professional Connections.
• ​University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Cofrin Library

Adaptation Statement

Portions of Business Communication for Success has been incorproated as a section, “Group Communication, Teamwork, and Leadership.” This work was produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. The 2015 adapted edition was produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, and is available online at: http://open.lib.umn.edu/businesscommunication/. Please see the foreward of the section for more details specific to this OER.

Portions from from Arley Cruthers’ Business Writing for Everyone, have also been adapted into this resource. Specifically, the chapters on “Emails,” “Inclusive Language” and “Plain Language.” Business Writing For Everyone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.