A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a 5-hour- on-the-job writing course compared to a 30-hour college business communication course. The short business English refresher course focused on grammar, punctuation, and spelling; audience analysis; and direct, negative, and persuasive letters and memos. The college course focused on the same, but also included more in-depth assignments, and assumed that the students had already mastered writing mechanics in previous composition courses. Thirty-six subjects from the short course and 75 subjects from the college course participated, while 218 college students served as a control group. A pretest, posttest, and final test, all objective, were given to the three groups to collect data, as were pretest and posttest questionnaires, designed to determine students' confidence in their writing and their motivation for improving their skills. The results indicated that subjects in the short course made substantial gains in their writing skills and gained as much as the university students gained from their 30-hour course. Both groups retained their new knowledge and skills for at least one month after instruction. However, the subjects in the short course did not gain significantly in their writing confidence. (HTH)