Umiejętności pisania zawodowego

Język angielski w zastosowaniu zawodowym

Autor

Afiliacja

Ben Stanley

Wydział Nauk Społecznych, Uniwersytet SWPS

Exercise 1: writing a memo

Scenario

You are the Chief Compliance Officer. You need to inform all department heads about new whistleblower procedures and updates to the code of ethics, effective from 1 May 2026. The changes include:

• A new anonymous whistleblower reporting platform (internal web portal + external independent hotline)
• Mandatory compliance training (60 minutes, online) for all staff
• Revised conflict of interest disclosure requirements — staff must declare any external directorships, paid consultancies, or family members employed by competitors or suppliers
• Stronger due diligence requirements for new external partnerships

Department heads must:

• Cascade this information to their teams by a specific deadline
• Ensure at least 90% training completion within their departments
• Return an acknowledgement form to HR
• Flag any capacity issues

Your task

In small groups of 4–5, draft one shared business memo of under 250 words conveying this information to department heads. Follow the structure illustrated in the annotated memo exemplar in the handout:

1. Header: To / From / Date / Subject
2. Opening: context + purpose (1–2 sentences)
3. Body: organised with headings or bullet points, in active voice
4. Closing: clear call to action + contact information

Language requirements (deliberate practice)

Your memo must include:

• At least 5 vocabulary items from Lessons 1–4, drawn from: accountability, compliance, conflict of interest, integrity, transparency, risk assessment, stakeholders, whistleblower, sustainability, code of ethics, corporate culture, due diligence
• At least three different modal verbs (Lesson 3) used correctly:
  • one obligation (must, have to, need to)
  • one advice (should, ought to)
  • one possibility (may, might, could)
• At least two sentence adverbials (Lesson 2), e.g. consequently, furthermore, importantly, clearly, moreover

You have 20 minutes. Keep the memo short: department heads are busy.

Group self-check (last 3 minutes): memo

Before submitting your draft to the room, work through the memo self-check checklist in the handout (under Business memos → Self-check checklist) as a group. If anything is missing, fix it.

Exercise 2: writing a short proposal

Scenario: NordicPrime Retail — Czech and Slovak market entry

Client: NordicPrime Retail Sp. z o.o.
Proposal date: 3 June 2026
Prepared by: Crossroads Consulting Partners

Background

NordicPrime Retail, a Polish home-furnishings retailer with annual revenues of €142 million and a 6.8% Polish market share, has identified the Czech and Slovak markets as priority targets for a 2026–2028 international expansion. Both countries sit within the same trade bloc, share a supply chain infrastructure with Poland, and have shown consumer demand growth of 4–6% in the home furnishings category over the last three years. However, two established competitors (one Swedish, one German) already operate across both markets, and a recent due diligence review has flagged concerns about outsourcing partnerships and local labour costs.

NordicPrime’s CEO has requested a market-entry study to answer three questions:

1. Should NordicPrime enter Czechia, Slovakia, or both simultaneously?
2. Should the entry mode be a joint venture, a franchise model, or a greenfield subsidiary?
3. What is the projected ROI over a 3-year horizon, and what are the key risks?

Executive summary (provided for you — read and incorporate)

NordicPrime Retail’s sustained domestic performance — market share growing from 4.3% to 6.8% in three years — creates a solid foundation for Central European expansion. Our ten-week market-entry study will identify the optimal sequence and mode of entry for the Czech and Slovak markets, assess tariff and regulatory barriers, and deliver a prioritised 36-month roadmap. Based on comparable engagements in the CEE retail sector, we project that a structured entry could secure a 2–4% target-market share within 24 months, generating an estimated €18–28 million in new revenue and a 2.6–3.2× ROI over five years.

Your task

In small groups of 4–5, and using the annotated proposal exemplar in the handout as a model, write the following four sections only of the proposal. Timeline, budget, and next steps can be completed as homework.

1. Problem statement (1 paragraph)
   • Use the client’s language. Lead with quantified pain points. Name what is at stake.
2. Proposed solution (1 paragraph, or a short list of phases)
   • What will you actually do? Make it concrete enough to visualise.
3. Key benefits (a short list)
   • What outcomes can the client project? Quantify wherever possible; use ranges where appropriate.
4. Deliverables (a short list)
   • Tangible outputs from the engagement.

Suggested division of labour: assign one section per group member, then five minutes at the end to read each other’s drafts and align voice across the document.

Language requirements (deliberate practice)

Your proposal must include:

• At least 8 terms drawn from Lessons 1–4:
  • Globalisation (L1): tariff, trade bloc, outsourcing, joint venture, economies of scale, FDI, protectionism, subsidy
  • Strategy (L2): market share, competitive advantage, USP, due diligence, strategic partnership, disruptive innovation, diversification, stakeholders
  • Finance (L4): revenue, profit margin, cash flow, working capital, ROI
  • Innovation (L4): prototype, pivot, scalability, time-to-market, first-mover advantage
• At least one first conditional (Lesson 1) projecting an outcome for the client
  • Template: “If NordicPrime [does X], it will [achieve Y].”
• At least three sentence adverbials (Lesson 2), drawn from:
  • Focus: clearly, importantly, significantly, fortunately
  • Connective: consequently, furthermore, therefore, in addition
  • Strategic signposts: strategically, fundamentally, typically, increasingly
• Active voice predominant (Lesson 4). Use passive only where the actor is genuinely unimportant.

You have 25 minutes. Quality of four sections beats rushed coverage of seven.

Group self-check (last 5 minutes): proposal

In your group, work through the proposal self-check checklist in the handout (under Business proposals → Self-check checklist) together. If anything is missing, fix it before moving on.

Exercise 3: outlining and drafting a business report

Scenario: GlobalTech Innovations

You are a senior analyst at an HR and innovation consultancy. Your client, GlobalTech Innovations Sp. z o.o., is a mid-sized software firm (470 employees) that has seen declining engineer retention and worsening product-delivery performance over the past two years. The CEO has asked your firm to analyse the situation and provide recommendations that address both the people and innovation dimensions of the problem.

Key data

The data appear as charts below, grouped under people, innovation, and finance. In the findings section of the report you will describe what the charts show, in formal English, using passive voice and hedging where appropriate. Supplementary indicators that are not charted are listed under each figure.

People

Additional people indicators (not charted):

• Onboarding satisfaction: 62% → 39%
• Burnout index (“severe”) in 4 of 7 product teams
• Upskilling budget: unchanged for 3 years in nominal terms (−18% in real terms)
• Retention of high-performers worse than average (34% attrition in top 20%)
• Performance reviews described by 48% of staff as “not useful”

Innovation

Additional innovation indicators (not charted):

• One successful pivot (mobile → cloud) in 2023, but no major product release since.

Finance

Additional finance indicator (not charted):

• Cash flow: positive but tightening; working capital ratio has declined.

Useful framings for describing the charts (passive + hedging)

• “A sharp increase was observed in engineer churn between 2022 and 2024…”
• “The data suggest that time-to-market has more than doubled since the 2022 baseline…”
• “Profit margin has declined from 12% to 7%, which is likely to put pressure on R&D investment…”

Step 1: collaborative outline (10 min, in small groups)

In your small group, produce a full outline of the report. Aim for three things:

1. Section headings for the full report (executive summary, introduction, findings, conclusions, recommendations)
2. A one-sentence summary of what each section will say
3. Your three main recommendations, each phrased as a specific action using a different modal verb (must, should, could, might, ought to, may)

Section	One-sentence summary
Executive summary
Introduction (scope, methodology)
Findings: People (theme 1)
Findings: Innovation (theme 2)
Findings: Finance (theme 3)
Conclusions
Recommendation 1 (modal: ____________)
Recommendation 2 (modal: ____________)
Recommendation 3 (modal: ____________)

Step 2: divide and draft (20 min, in your small group)

From your group outline, assign one section per group member and draft in parallel. Together, the group should produce:

• the executive summary (3–5 sentences, self-contained)
• at least two findings paragraphs, each describing one of the three charts above (one or two paragraphs per chart that describe what the chart shows, interpret the trend, and include at least one passive-voice sentence and one reported-speech sentence using a chosen reporting verb)
• the recommendations (three specific actions, each with a one-line justification and a deliberately different modal verb)

In the last 5 minutes, read each other’s sections and align voice and vocabulary across the document.

Language requirements

• Use the register illustrated in the annotated report exemplar in the handout: formal, objective, data-driven
• Hedging where appropriate (“the data suggest”, “is likely to”, “may not”)
• Mixed modal verbs (Lesson 3) in the recommendations
• Passive voice (Lesson 4) in findings where the agent is implicit
• Reported speech (Lesson 4) when summarising stakeholder inputs — at least one chosen reporting verb (stated, noted, acknowledged, argued, suggested, claimed)
• Sentence adverbials (Lesson 2) to mark logical structure
• At least 10 vocabulary items across people (L4), innovation (L4), finance (L4), and strategy (L2)