Communication

The Accountancy curriculum is designed to enrich the student education at Illinois. Through this curriculum, students gain crucial accounting knowledge; they also develop highly-regarded written and verbal communication skills that can provide a competitive edge when being considered for internships, employment, or graduate schools.

In our Accountancy classes, select papers and presentations are evaluated based on four criteria:

• Coherence: organization and unity of information

• Clarity: clear and direct information communication

• Conciseness: simplicity and precision of language and information

• Mechanics: use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Enrolled in a class with communication grading? These are the forms used:

• Written Communication Grading Rubric

• Written Communication Grading Symbols and Explanations

• In-class Presentation Evaluation Form

Academic integrity

Academic integrity also is extremely important here at Illinois, as both a part of our Student Honor Code and as a solid building block for your future professional responsibilities. Therefore, it’s crucial for you to properly reference and cite outside sources, and to avoid any potential concerns or issues in regards to plagiarism.

Unsure about the essentials of proper citation and plagiarism avoidance? Visit:

• What Constitutes Plagiarism

• Reference and Citation Styles

Communication guides

Have communication questions? Here are some handy documents on various topics:

• Avoiding Casual/Opinionated Language and Using Numbers/Symbols Appropriately

• Punctuation Chart

• Article Use

• Top 10 Business Writing Mistakes to Avoid

• Student’s Guide to Executive Summary Writing

• Student’s Guide to Memo Writing

• Student’s Guide to Report Writing

• Student’s Guide to Letter Writing

• Student’s Guide to Oral Presentations

Additional communication-related resources

• The University of Illinois Writers Workshop: With five on-campus locations, the Writers Workshop is open during fall and spring semesters and is available to any enrolled Illinois student at no additional charge. Students can schedule an individual, 50-minute appointment to review a specific paper, assignment, or any other written document. You can schedule an appointment online at illinois.mywconline.com or call (217) 333-8796.

• Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) : Purdue’s OWL is one of the most extensive collections of writing advice on the web. The handouts are generally short but useful and offer plenty of examples. About half of the handouts address punctuation and grammatical issues and others focus on style, reference formats, and advice about the writing process itself (“When You Start to Write,” “Overcoming Writer’s Block,” “Developing an Outline”).

• University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center: This is one of the more extensive online sources about different documentation styles and covers APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian (a footnote or endnote system).

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Communication Practices: This is a hyperlinked style and punctuation guide. It is very nicely written and has plenty of examples. It extensively discusses fifty of the most common problems with punctuation and mechanics, including commas, semicolons, colons, dashes, parentheses, ellipsis dots, and hyphens.