Introducing Professional Writing Skills to Future Naval Officers: An Adjunct to NPS Distance Learning

Abstract

Newly-minted naval officers will be judged by seniors on the merits of their writing skills. Required undergraduate English composition courses do not prepare officers to write the clear, well-organized correspondence required during active duty service. This project answers the following question: will written communication training provided to midshipmen prior to commissioning enable them to report to their first assignments with the written communication knowledge and skills to communicate their intentions clearly at first attempt and write with impact, thus decreasing the administrative burden on senior officers? To answer this question, we provided professional writing training in the form of interactive modules to 17 NROTC midshipmen at Marquette University and then assessed their understanding and capacity to apply the concepts. Midshipmen earned scores that met or exceeded our criteria for comprehension of the guidelines for professional writing. In addition, midshipmen interview responses were overwhelmingly receptive to this training, and, as a result, 100 percent of midshipmen surveyed felt better prepared for future professional writing tasks. We recommend that the NETC mandate standardized writing training for midshipmen prior to their commissioning. Additionally, we recommend that the NPS partner with the NETC to assist in creating a distance-learning tutorial for professional writing.