I was working today on my new site that features free online courses (from major school offerings like Yale and MIT to free email courses from niche content sites). While I was adding some new science courses I realized something – these are actually great resources for writers.

Obviously, online writing courses could benefit writers, but what about all of the rest?

I advocate specialization. One of the biggest complaints I hear from generalists is that they don’t have a degree in a field, so they feel they can’t specialize. While that’s probably true for some niches (like certain types of medical writing), it’s not true of many others. You don’t need a degree in all cases, but you do need a firm grasp on the subject matter.

Free online courses can give you that without you having to invest huge amounts of time or money in taking on-campus courses. And frankly, they’re a hell of a lot better than doing your research on sites like Wikipedia.

In the New Year, think about your specialty area(s). Do you need to brush up on basics? Would you like to expand into a similar niche? If so, see if you can find free online courses from reputable sources that can give you the background you need to improve your writing career (or just look at the folks leading the courses if you’re looking for experts to interview).

Let’s look at MIT’s OpenCourseWare classes as an example. Here are some specific courses that might be of interest to certain types of writers:

1. If you’re a marketing copywriter who focuses on writing copy targeting female buyers, you may be interested in Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies to better understand your target markets.
2. If you’re a music writer, you may want to look at the Hip Hop course to better understand that genre.
3. If you write about politics, you may be interested in the American Political Thought course.
4. If you write about real estate, you may want to look at the course in Real Estate Finance and Investment.
5. If you’re a health and fitness writer, you might be interested in the weight training course.

No matter what niche you specialize in or what markets you generally target, you can find courses to help you improve your knowledge (and your writing), making you more valuable to clients.

Here are a few other MIT-specific courses you may be interested in as a writer:

• Writing About Literature (good for book reviewers perhaps)
• Introduction to Technical Communication (a good start for those looking into technical writing as a career option)
• Entrepreneurial Marketing (a good one for any writer who’s self-employed – learn how to better market your services)
• Working in a Global Economy (an interesting option especially for Web writers who work with more international clients)
• Playwriting I (for those interested in learning how to write a script)

Many other universities and organizations offer free online courses. You can check out my site to find others added periodically, or simply search on your own. The best courses I’ve seen so far have been from MIT, Yale, the BBC (language courses), and the SBA (business courses).

About the Author: Jennifer Mattern

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Jenn is a professional blogger and freelance business writer. She has worked as a freelance writer since 1999, and has been an active business and niche blogger since 2004. She owns All Freelance Writing as well as several other sites and blogs covering PR, small business, and related topic areas. She is also currently writing a nonfiction book for freelance writers called The Query-Free Freelancer, and is the author of the Web Writer's Guide e-book series. Subscribe to my posts (only posts from this author).

1. Kristie Lorette says:

   December 30, 2008 at 10:10 am

   It was really nice of you to share these courses with us. Unfortunately for me, my two areas of expertise (marketing and real estate) were so old (2005 and 2006) that it wasn’t current information, but I still wanted to say thank you. It was very thoughtful of you!

   Reply
2. Jennifer Mattern says:

   December 30, 2008 at 10:28 am

   The fundamentals of marketing really don’t change much, so most of those courses are probably still fine after a few years. For example they have an intro to marketing course there I believe – even at a few years, nothing should really be outdated. It depends on what exactly you want to learn though.

   You could look at the SBA marketing courses to see if there’s something of interest there, or some of these:

   BusinessWeek Online Courses – you need to wait for an open session.

   Kutztown University offers a marketing 101 course.

   Open University has a few master’s level courses in their business & management section.

   Reply