http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ A search of MERLOT materials Copyright 1997-2013 MERLOT. All rights reserved. Sat, 18 May 2013 05:13:35 PDT Sat, 18 May 2013 05:13:35 PDT http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/images/merlot.gif http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ 44 34 http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=742014 This is a free book from Book Boon.'״Improve Your Writing Skills - A Step-by-Step Guide to Compelling Content Creation” offers specific, easy to practice strategies and tools to help you: structure your material in a way that makes it impossible to ignore, optimize your content for Search Engines and rank at the top of Google, position yourself as a brand or an expert, improve your business communications, and establish a strong connection with your audience.' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=742015 This is a free book from BookBoon.'You may not be a professional writer. Yet no matter what type of profession you are in, chances are you will need to write something on a professional level at one time or another. This e-book includes tips that will help you improve your writing (and actually get your writing done faster and easier) no matter what type of writing you need to do. You'll use it as a handy reference again and again!' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=741474 This short video is one of six videos from Macquarie University's Postgraduate Program in Higher Education on writing critiques of scholarly articles for upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level courses.The video offers a step-by-step analysis of a successful article critique, from structure to adding the student's interpretation of the work instead of merely citing from it. Included in the video is expressing citations correctly as well as effective writing skills.It also offers a transcript of the material, which is helpful. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=732034 'EVERYTHING YOU NEED to improve your grammar for BUSINESS COMMUNICATION. The ideal way to perfect your ENGLISH GRAMMAR for the workplace. OVER 800 ACTIVITIES The biggest business grammar app available gives you all the practice you will need. 144 units with more than 1600 activities – that’s 5,200 questions – all available in practice and test modes!TEST YOURSELF OR PRACTICEChoose to use ‘practice mode’ where you check your answers as you go and where you can browse the grammar explanations in the reference section, or ‘test mode’ to challenge yourself and test your knowledge of a topic.WRITTEN BY EXPERTSWell-known Business English experts Nick Brieger and Simon Sweeney guide the user through 72 different topics. NO ‘ARTIFICIAL’ LANGUAGEThis app focuses on the language you really need to do business in English—whatever your profession and wherever you are in the world. All the example sentences are taken from the Collins COBUILD corpus, a constantly updated 4.5-billion-word database of today’s English language, featuring up-to-date and authentic business English.WHO IS THIS APP FOR?• For all busy executives looking to improve their grammar skills • For business students and those who want to make a start in business• For anyone who wants to make a good impression in all business contexts'The first app is free. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=730113 This is a free book offered by BookBoon.'Write Like A Pro is jam-packed with practical tips, tools and resources that help eliminate writing challenges for beginners as well as experienced writers. It contains effective manual and online techniques you can use during the pre-writing, writing or post-writing phase.Write Like A Pro enables you to reduce time on writing and editing tasks by introducing easy-to-use tip sheets. It presents proven techniques used by successful professional writers. And what better way to gain valuable knowledge than from those who write for a living?This free ebook is a plain language aide that’s applicable to business, technical and academic documents. Use the knowledge shared and before you know it, you too will be able to write like a pro!' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=730127 This is a free course offered as part of the Saylor Foundation's Professional Development program. 'This program is designed especially for adult learners who are ready to learn and apply skills demanded by today’s employers. Whether you are new to the employment world or wish to develop and improve your workplace skills, you will be able to select short-term courses targeted to your success.''Professional Writing is designed to provide adult learners with the basic skills they need to write effective documents in the workplace. In this course, you will learn how to analyze your audience so that you can write prose that is both clear and persuasive. You will practice writing common business documents, such as emails, memos, proposals, and presentations. You will also learn how to effectively edit these documents for maximum impact.This course is part of the Professional Development Program (PRDV), which is designed especially for adult learners who are ready to gain and apply skills demanded by today’s employers.' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=725408 This is a free open course offered by the Saylor Foundation.'Have you ever wondered what qualities billionaire Warren Buffet, visionary Steve Jobs, or upcoming Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com all have in common? After you finish studying business practices in this course, you may discover that you have some of the same qualities as other successful entrepreneurs.This course is designed as a survey course that will expose you to business terminology, concepts, and current business issues. The intent is to develop a viable business vocabulary, foster critical and analytical thinking, and refine your business decision-making skills. These skills will be acquired by the reading materials, exercises, and research assignments in this course that simulate the workplace today. By delving into the five units of this course, you will be able to fine tune your direction and choice of career in business.A major goal of your education is to help you become a citizen who can contribute and compete in an increasingly global environment. Elements of this course will focus on multicultural aspects of markets and business. Additional elements will ask you to look at other countries and evaluate the combination of business models and country characteristics.' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=721918 This is a free online textbook offered by Saylor Foundation.The author's goals in writing Exploring Business Version 2.0 were simple: (1) introduce students to business in an exciting way and (2) provide faculty with a fully developed teaching package that allows them to do the former.Toward those ends, the following features (beyond an extraordinarily clear book) make this an outstanding text:1.- Integrated (Optional) Nike Case Study: A Nike case study is available for instructors who wish to introduce students to business using an exciting and integrated case (updated each semester). Through an in-depth study of a real company, students learn about the functional areas of business and how these areas fit together. Studying a dynamic organization on a real-time basis allows students to discover the challenges that it faces, and exposes them to critical issues affecting the business, such as globalization, ethics and social responsibility, product innovation, diversity, supply chain management, and e-business.2- A Progressive (Optional) Business Plan: Having students develop a business plan in the course introduces students to the excitement and challenges of starting a business and helps them discover how the functional areas of business interact. This textbook package includes an optionalintegrated business plan project modeled after one refined by the author and her teaching team over the past ten years.Students begin by reviewing a document describing the business plan project. In subsequent chapters, students complete another section of the 10-part business plan project. By the end of the course they're shown how to integrate each individual section into a final plan. Because the project is carefully coordinated with the presentation of course materials, students are able to apply what they're learning, as they're learning it, to the practical process of preparing a business plan. Preparing the financial section of the business plan can be difficult for students, so we furnish students with an Excel template that simplifies the process. They don't even need to be competent in Excel to use it; it's simple to use and we provide detailed instructions.3- AACSB Emphasis: The text provides end-of-chapter questions, problems, and cases that ask students to do more than regurgitate information. Most require students to gather information, assess a situation, think about it critically, and reach a conclusion. Each chapter presents ten Questions and Problems as well as five cases on areas of skill and knowledge endorsed by AACSB: Learning on the Web, Career Opportunities, The Ethics Angle, Team-Building Skills, and The Global View.More than 70% of end-of-chapter items help students build skills in areas designated as critical by AACSB, including analytical skills, ethical awareness and reasoning abilities, multicultural understanding and globalization, use of information technology, and communications and team oriented skills. Each AACSB inspired exercise is identified by an AACSB tag and a note indicating the relevant skill area.4- Author-Written Instructor Manual (IM): For the past eleven years, Karen Collins has been developing, coordinating and teaching (to over 3,500 students) an Introduction to Business course. Sections of the course have been taught by a mix of permanent faculty, graduate students, and adjuncts. Each semester, she oversees the course and guides approximately ten instructors as they teach; a task that's been made possible through the development and continuous improvement of extensive, clear, and highly coordinated teaching materials.'' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=721922 This is a free textbook offered by Saylor Foundation.'The reason why Randall Fallows wrote Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis is simple: to help give students a better understanding of how to discover, develop, and revise an analytical essay. Here is how his 5 chapter book goes about doing just that:The first two chapters focus on the nature of an analysis and what’s involved in writing an analytical essay.Randall shows that analysis consists of a balance of assertions (statements which present their viewpoints or launch an exploration of their concerns), examples (specific passages/scenes/events which inspire these views), explanations (statements that reveal how the examples support the assertions), and significance (statements which reveal the importance of their study to personal and/or cultural issues).After showing why each feature should be present throughout an essay, he reveals how to ”set the stage“ for producing one of their own.He first helps students to evaluate their own views on a subject and to examine how these views emerge from their own experiences, values and judgments.He, then, shows them how to research what others have said about the subject and provides suggestions for evaluating and incorporating this research into their own perspectives.Finally, Randall discusses the nature of writing, not as a linear procedure, but as a recursive process where the discovery and clarification of a concept occur simultaneously.The remaining three chapters reveal more specific advice on how to develop an analytical essay.' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=721244 This is a free textbook offered by BookBoon.'THE SMART GUIDE TO BUSINESS WRITING is a hands-on, easy guide to writing all the different business materials that may be required in the course of a career. You will find tips on writing everything from business emails to power points to performance reviews to sales reports to business letters (yes, they still exist). The book is a quick and simplified guide to writing business materials you can be proud of, business writing where you will shine. There’s even a bit of humour along the way.'