Course not currently available

Effective Business Writing Elearning

Training

Online

£ 20 + VAT

Description

  • Type

    Training

  • Level

    Beginner

  • Methodology

    Online

  • Class hours

    3h

  • Duration

    Flexible

  • Virtual classes

    Yes

Effective writing gives you the tools to get your ideas across more clearly – no matter what you have to write. We’ll take you step-by-step through POWER writing, the method that we’ve used successfully to help thousands of writers on our in-company courses. You’ll go from planning your message to crafting your sentences in the clearest, most compelling language, with a few checks on grammar and punctuation along the way. And our interactive exercises mean you can put into practice what you learn as soon as you learn it. By the end of this 4-part course you will have the core skills you need to produce writing that does the job you want it do.

About this course

You will learn:
How to plan and target your writing
The importance of thinking before you write
The POWER© method of writing
How readers read whether on a screen or on paper, and why that matters to you
Why you need to get information in the right order
Which types of sentences work best
How to make punctuation work for you
The most common grammatical mistakes and how to avoid them
The value of plain English: why it’s good to be concise
How to choose the best words for your ideas
How long should a paragraph be?
Why you need to think about how your document looks
How to avoid the mistakes that make you look foolish
...and much more.

This course is perfect for anyone who needs to communicate in writing who hasn't had any formal writing training or experience. It will help you improve the quality of your emails, write better reports, winning proposals, copy for a website, minutes for your local group...

Option of personal one to one feedback from our trainer.

Questions & Answers

Add your question

Our advisors and other users will be able to reply to you

Fill in your details to get a reply

We will only publish your name and question

Reviews

Subjects

  • Business Writing
  • Grammar
  • Punctuation
  • Writing
  • Email
  • Report Writing
  • Writing Skills
  • Writing online
  • Writing web content
  • Spelling

Teachers and trainers (1)

Margaret Coffey

Margaret Coffey

Senior trainer

Margaret Coffey is a journalist, trainer and founding-director of ETC. She works with major publishing houses to design and deliver programmes to improve the performance of editors and journalists across all media channels. For 20 years she has written about business and technology for US and UK publications and websites, including BusinessWeek, The Independent, The Financial Times and many others. Margaret leads our News writing, Feature writing and Writing for the web online courses.

Course programme

Thinking before you write
  • Who are you writing for?
  • How do they read?
  • What does this mean for you?
  • Why clear writing is about prioritising
  • How to find your message
How to plan
  • Get the most important information first
  • Interactive exercises to help you plan
The POWER method of writing
  • Prepare - who are you writing for; what are you trying to say
  • Organise - plan: how should you order your points
  • Write - get your ideas down as simply as possible
  • Evaluate - look at your writing with fresh eyes
  • Revise - correct the faults you've identified
Putting your thoughts into sentences
  • Why it's important to keep it simple
  • Why each sentence should contain one idea
  • The optimum length for sentences
  • Common problems with sentences and how to avoid them
  • Understanding the basic parts of the sentence (enough grammar, but not too much)
  • Start strong
  • Check for sense
  • Make parts agree
  • Keep verbs consistent
  • Creating paragraphs
  • Interactive exercises on how to structure sentences
Punctuation with a purpose
  • Marks that end a sentence
  • How to use commas well
  • The place for dashes
  • When to use the colon
  • Secrets of the semi colon
  • Understanding the apostrophe
  • Interactive exercise to check use of punctuation
Using words well
  • What will work for your readers
  • Why simpler is better
  • The value of plain English
  • How to be concise
  • Keep control of adjectives
  • Be specific
  • Interactive exercises on how to be concise
Keep language fresh
  • Avoid the jargon trap
  • Be wary of clichés
  • Watch for repetition
  • Favour active verbs; remember passive
  • Positive or negative?
  • Interactive exercises on keeping language lively
Evaluating what you have written
  • Look at it with a fresh eye
  • Check for structure, sentences, words
  • Check the appearance
  • Does it look accessible?
  • How long should a paragraph be?
Remember your audience
  • Check for visual comfort
  • How to break up copy
  • Use headings to draw the eye
  • Create bullet pointed lists
  • Add images, graphs and charts
  • Deciding how long your document should be
  • How to trim excess length
  • Catching mistakes
  • What to look for
  • Picking up typos and inconsistencies
  • When to look for mistakes
Revise
  • Leave time to make changes
  • Find someone to exchange with

Effective Business Writing Elearning

£ 20 + VAT