Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a short piece that focused on employers’ acknowledging the poor writing skills of many MBA students and the associated response by B-schools.

Yes, writing skills are a problem, but I caution against Wharton’s solution:

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania plans to double its communication coursework to 12 classes starting in 2012. Last fall, all first-year students competed in a mandatory writing competition, which asked students to write short pieces in response to prompts. It will become a fixture in the new curriculum.

Creating more writing classes is better than nothing, but writing skills need to be enforced throughout an entire curriculum. There cannot be one course that grades on conciseness, while another course only evaluates the message. Students don’t always know what they need to know; such mixed messages will not help them take their written communication more seriously.

I contend that students don’t need more writing courses, they need writing skills to have a more prominent role in the qualitative courses that they already take.