I feel that writing at the univeristy level and on the professional and business level is often very different, but occassionally similar in some ways also. Writing in the academic world focuses on either weaving a detailed and interesting story or presenting research or opinions in a semi-formal format most of the time. In the workplace, often research and reports are presented in a more standard format which rely much more heavily on the information and a more dry writing style.

However, this doesn't have to be the case. Writing in the workplace has more flexibility than most people realize because the writer can use his own judgement to try and inform and sell the reader on his information. Wheras in the academic world you will generally only have one reader and that reader will have one preffered style, business writing allows you more flexibility to change the style based on what you want to acomplish. Generally, no one is telling you how to write your report or letter. Depending on how well your ideas are communicated and how well you acomplish your goal, you will be rewarded through sucess in your work field rather than with a grade.

The academic style of writing prepares us for the business and professional style of writing that we will use in the work place by showing us various ways of writing and how they come across. Only after we have used these various styles in a way assigned by a teacher can we learn when, where, and how to use them on our own to acomplish our specific goals in our project.