This paper will describe how written communication is used to add a liberal arts perspective to business school marketing courses.  An assigned project requiring students to write original marketing content on a blog will be described.  The paper will develop a case for using a blog assignment in Advertising, New Product Development and Marketing Management (capstone) courses. The intention is to improve student’s writing skills as well as provide them with a writing sample to supplement their resume for effectively competing in the job market.

The primary liberal learning activity of the blog assignment is writing but there is an element of analytical thinking as well because the assignment requires that the blog content be relevant to topics and concepts in the course.  The combination of writing and analytical thinking in the assignment improves the student’s critical thinking skills.

The goal for the student is to have a blog that demonstrates both writing skills and expertise in the field of marketing. Students are required to write blog posts that reflect their analytical skills, good ideas, and creativity. Supplemental course content posted by the instructor on Twitter and Pinterest is used as inspiration for the creation of six graded blog posts. The assignment requires students to reflect on articles, research data, and trend reports and then create six insightful blog posts with analysis, questions and opinions about the articles or research they have read.