[jdhn]

>Proper written communication and literature searching skills are demanded everywhere in the workplace.

Proper written communication, absolutely. However, you can argue that people don't need 4 years of writing essays in order to comprise emails or PowerPoints. As for literature searching, what does that mean in a normal office environment context?

[HarryHirsch]

My students have to write lab protocols. In General Chemistry class they were filling in worksheets (seriously, are they paying tuition to fill in worksheets?), now they get to write 8 - 10 pages for each organic lab about the context, what they did and what is all means. The initial attempts are universally lousy, but they do improve. One hopes that the improved writing skills carry over to other kinds of written communication. It's just sad that expectations in the first semesters are set so low, it's really a tyranny of low expectation.

Footnoting means to put stuff into proper context. Of course you need literature searching skills to put stuff into proper context, and you need to know where to find documentation for your field of work.