Free online writing courses with certificates: which of the listed courses qualify
Among the 9 courses on this page, only HubSpot issues a free certificate; the university courses sell theirs as an upgrade to a free course, and the grammar and reasoning courses issue nothing.
Free certificate: HubSpot Content Marketing
HubSpot Academy's Content Marketing Certification Course runs 8 hours 23 minutes over 14 lessons, covers writing blog content people read and share, topic clusters, repurposing and promotion, and ends in a certification exam. The course and the certificate are free with a HubSpot Academy account, and HubSpot's knowledge base lists the certification as valid for two years. For anyone looking for free content writing courses with certificate, it is the only match on this page.
Free to take, certificate paid
The university courses on edX are free to audit while the run is active, without graded work or peer review, and sell a verified certificate: $199 for BerkeleyX's Academic and Business Writing, $169 for How to Write an Essay, and $209 for each of Harvard's Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking and Structure and Function of Argument. On Coursera, Lund University's Writing in English at University and CalArts' Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop carry the free-course flag, so every module is open without payment; the shareable certificate is a paid option whose price is not stated on the page.
No certificate
Khan Academy's Grammar overview and Oxford's Critical Reasoning for Beginners are free in full with no enrolment, assessment or credential.
Which academic writing course is free: essays and university writing
The academic courses are written for people who must produce essays in English, and the Berkeley pair are by Maggie Sokolik of UC Berkeley's College Writing Programs. How to Write an Essay (5 weeks at 5 to 6 hours a week) starts with grammar terminology, moves to sentences and paragraphs, then introductions, conclusions and thesis statements; its stated prerequisite is enough English to follow an introductory university course. Academic and Business Writing (6 weeks at 3 to 5 hours a week) continues into persuasive essays, proofreading, self-editing and tone.
Lund's Writing in English at University (3 weeks) covers process writing, structuring an argument, using and citing sources, and an editing toolbox; the page says learners get a free electronic textbook written for the course. All of them are rated beginner and aimed at second-language writers, so the English page is the place to start if you are not yet reading at that level.
Which business writing course is free to audit: persuasion and argument
Academic and Business Writing is the only listed course with workplace prose in its title, and its learning goals cover persuasive writing, revision, tone and vocabulary for formal contexts. The Harvard pair approach the same skill from rhetoric. Rhetoric (8 weeks at 2 to 3 hours a week) analyses twentieth-century American speeches, teaches you to tell argument from technique and spot logical fallacies, and assigns a persuasive opinion editorial and a short speech. Structure and Function of Argument (8 weeks) maps everyday arguments visually, tests whether reasons support a claim, and practises disagreeing respectfully. For writing that has to be read online, the HubSpot course above is the practical option.
Which creative writing courses online are free here
The only creative course listed is about poetry. Sharpened Visions (8 hours in total, at 3 to 5 hours a week) is built on the idea that the real work begins after the first draft: modules on the poetic line, abstraction and image, metaphor, rhyme, rhythm and revision, with readings of modern and contemporary poets. Feedback comes through a structured peer workshop in which learners critique each other's poems against rubric criteria, which makes it the only listed course with a peer workshop that costs nothing. No fiction or screenwriting course is listed at present.
Grammar and reasoning before you write
Khan Academy and Oxford supply the groundwork that sits underneath the writing courses. The Grammar overview works through parts of speech, punctuation, sentences and clauses, and usage and style across 100 tracked skills, with practice and a unit test per unit; no duration is stated, and it also works as a reference for one rule at a time. Critical Reasoning for Beginners is a six-lecture podcast series by Marianne Talbot on recognising arguments, setting them out logic-book style and judging validity and truth, with transcripts for every episode.
Related pages on this site
The Berkeley, Harvard and Lund courses also appear on the English page, the HubSpot course on the marketing and digital marketing pages, and Academic and Business Writing on the business page. Free credentials across all subjects are collected at free certifications.