Writing Across the Accounting Curriculum: An Experiment

To improve the writing skills of accounting students, we developed a structured writing effectiveness program across three junior level courses in the accounting major: tax, cost, and financial accounting. Writing counted for approximately five percent of the grade in each course and accounting professors discussed grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. A consulting expert on writing also con tributed to the program. We tested the results of our program empirically through both a pretest/posttest design and a control/treatment group comparison. The results provide evidence that our writing across the curriculum project significantly improved the students' writing skills.