Frequently Asked Questions

It publishes insights and commentary from the authors of the world’s leading business communication textbooks, plus complimentary resources for classroom use.

In practice that means two things. New posts on teaching business communication, covering everything from AI and ethics to writing fundamentals, employment communication, visual design, and intercultural practice. And a large library of free teaching materials: checklists, videos, infographics, quizzes, prompt packs, and syllabus tools.

Courtland L. Bovée and John V. Thill, authors of Business Communication Today, Excellence in Business Communication, and Business Communication Essentials. The two have been textbook authors for more than three decades and have introduced millions of students to business communication.

Professor Bovée taught for 22 years at Grossmont College in San Diego, where he received teaching honors and the college’s C. Allen Paul Distinguished Chair. John Thill is a communications consultant who has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups. Both received proclamations from the Governor of Massachusetts for their contributions to education. They are members of the Association for Business Communication and the Textbook and Academic Authors Association.

Business communication instructors at two-year and four-year institutions, full-time and adjunct, whether or not they currently teach with a Bovée and Thill text. Most of the material is about teaching the course rather than about any particular textbook, so it is useful regardless of what you have adopted.

No. The posts, checklists, videos, infographics, quizzes, and downloadable guides are all complimentary, as are the newsletter and the instructor groups. Examination copies of the textbooks are also free to educators through Pearson.

It is an author-developed site, and we say so plainly. It supports instructors who teach with the Bovée and Thill texts published by Pearson, and the textbook pages exist to help you evaluate and adopt them. Everything on the site is open to everyone.

Read the textbook guidance here the way you would read any publisher-affiliated teaching resource: as expert, useful, and written by people with a stake in the outcome. We aim to earn trust by being candid, including about what research does and does not yet show.

New posts appear regularly across more than forty topic categories. The simplest way to keep up is the once-a-week Wednesday newsletter, which is free. You can also subscribe to the blog by email or RSS. Sign-up is on the Access Instructional Resources page.

A great deal, and all of it free. The centerpiece is the Business Communication Instructor’s Toolkit, 42 downloadable checklists grouped into course design and modernization, instructor excellence, student engagement and motivation, communication skills and curriculum focus, classroom management, and technology and AI integration.

Alongside it: more than eighteen videos on AI and the future of the course, infographics on employer-sought skills and professionalism, instructor self-assessment quizzes, syllabus templates for semester and quarter systems, AI prompt packs, a student AI decision framework, and eleven curated digital magazines. The full index is on the Access Instructional Resources page.

A set of 42 checklists, each on one teaching challenge, written to be used rather than read. Topics range from modernizing a course and retiring practices that no longer work, to energizing apathetic students, handling communication anxiety, managing difficult classroom behavior, giving constructive feedback, and teaching AI prompt mastery.

Each is a short downloadable PDF. Instructors typically pick the two or three that match what they are wrestling with this term rather than working through all of them.

Several layers. Videos on the future of business communication and AI, on AI fundamentals, on AI in core skills such as writing and presentations, and on AI in career preparation. Instructor quizzes covering AI’s role in each major area of the course. Downloadable guides including a master prompt guide, an AI prompt pack, a student AI decision framework, and a curriculum audit for AI readiness.

There is also a set of 33 AI-era readiness tools built specifically for Business Communication Today, 16th Edition, including a Syllabus Builder that generates a syllabus mapped to the book’s 19 chapters and a Syllabus Stress Test that audits an existing syllabus for gaps.

No. The checklists, articles, videos, infographics, quizzes, and newsletter are open to every business communication instructor. A handful of tools are built around a specific textbook’s chapter structure, and those are labeled as such, but they remain free to view.

Adoption affects only the Pearson course materials, such as the instructor’s manual, test bank, and MyLab, which Pearson provides to adopters.

There are Teaching Business Communication groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, plus a presence on Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest, Substack, and other channels. Links are on the Access Instructional Resources page. The LinkedIn group is limited to instructors.

Three U.S. titles with Pearson: Business Communication Today, Excellence in Business Communication, and Business Communication Essentials. There are also Canadian editions of Excellence in Business Communication and Business Communication Essentials.

Current editions and ordering information are on the Order Examination Copies page.

Business Communication Today is the comprehensive option, for courses that want full coverage and depth. Excellence in Business Communication is the streamlined option, for a focused course. Business Communication Essentials is the briefest, for courses with limited time or a supplementary role.

All three cover the core curriculum. The practical difference is how much depth the term allows and how much reading you want to assign.

Go to the ordering page. Do you prefer contacting your local Pearson representative to request examination copies? If so, use this Rep Locator.

An Instructor’s Manual, a test bank keyed by learning objective and classified by difficulty and by modality with AACSB learning standards identified, TestGen software, accessible PowerPoints, and MyLab. Pearson provides these to adopters, and your Pearson representative or the Pearson Instructor Resource Center is the fastest route to them.

Canadian editions of Excellence in Business Communication and Business Communication Essentials. Order through Pearson Canada, which the Order Examination Copies page links to, or use the Canadian Rep Locator.

An instructional framework that applies insights from neuroscience and cognitive science to textbook content and instructional design. Created by Bovée and Thill in collaboration with Kimberly DiMezza, MD, it is built on a simple premise: students learn more effectively when a textbook is designed to work with the brain rather than against it.

It works at two levels. The feature layer includes neurolearning prompts, infographics, quick-reference tables, and structured content. The text layer is the rewriting of chapters to simplify, shorten, and clarify. Its six pillars are Active Learning and Engagement; Visual Learning and Emotional Connection; Multi-Sensory Learning; Cognitive Load Management and Information Structuring; Learning Analytics and Personalization; and Sleep and Study Optimization Coaching.

Independently published research rather than proprietary claims: Sweller’s cognitive load theory, Paivio’s dual coding theory, Mayer’s multimedia learning research, Roediger and Karpicke’s test-enhanced learning, Kornell and Bjork’s spacing research, metacognition syntheses from Llorens and colleagues and the Education Endowment Foundation, Immordino-Yang and Damasio on emotion and learning, and Walker and Born and Wilhelm on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

To be precise: these researchers did not evaluate or endorse any of the books. Their published findings inform the design, and the framework implements them.

Not yet, and we won’t claim otherwise. The framework is new, and no longitudinal study has measured its outcomes in live classrooms. The principles it applies each have decades of independent evidence behind them; the framework’s contribution is applying them consistently across an entire text. Classroom data will accumulate as editions built on it come into use.

We publish a 27-question guide for business communication instructors covering the research base, the evidence status, the prompt types, chapter reductions, AI, accessibility, analytics, privacy, switching from another text, and how to explain the adoption to a department chair. It is also available as a PDF you can download and share with colleagues.

The Business Communication Teaching and Learning Center treats the framework in more depth, alongside its wider guidance on teaching the course.

Integrate it everywhere it is actually used rather than in a single unit, and teach judgment rather than rules. That means placing AI in planning, drafting, revising, research, and audience analysis; requiring students to verify AI output for accuracy, bias, completeness, and tone; using scenarios where an AI suggestion is plausible but imperfect; and stating a clear policy for each assignment rather than one blanket rule.

The site has substantial material on this, including the master prompt guide, the student AI decision framework, guidance on building assignments that reveal student judgment, and instructor quizzes on AI’s role in each area of the course. All are on the Access Instructional Resources page.

Start from the right diagnosis. Disengagement is usually a mismatch between traditional instruction and how students learn, not a character flaw. What works: activating prior knowledge before new material, opening with a question rather than an answer, making tasks personal and immediate, reducing cognitive load, linking content to career stakes, creating emotional safety, and using decision-focused scenarios.

A number of articles on this site offer excellent advice on building a more engaging course, and eight checklists in the Instructor’s Toolkit address engagement and motivation directly, including ones on cultivating curiosity, moving students from apathy to action, overcoming communication anxiety, and bridging generational divides.

Connect every skill to a consequence they care about. Students who see business communication as a writing requirement disengage; students who see it as the thing that determines whether they get hired, promoted, and listened to do not.

The site’s infographics on the skills employers seek and the checklists on why business communication is vital are written for exactly this conversation.

Yes. The site offers syllabus templates for both semester and quarter systems, a Syllabus Builder that generates a complete syllabus mapped to Business Communication Today, 16th Edition, and a Syllabus Stress Test that audits an existing syllabus for gaps and accreditation misalignments. All are free, on the Access Instructional Resources page.

Yes. Link freely and cite the blog with the post title and date. The checklists, infographics, and guides are meant to be used in class and shared with colleagues. For reuse beyond that, such as republishing material in your own course pack or on another site, contact us first.

Please do. Use the Contact Us page, or the Suggestion Box, which invites comments on the textbooks and materials. Requests for new checklists and reports of what is working in your classroom are both welcome.

The blog is organized into more than forty topic categories, so browsing by category is usually faster than scrolling. The Resources for Instructors category collects the teaching-focused posts.