Effective Business Writing Skills

Overview

Messages travel at high speed in our global business world – people want immediate, accurate replies. Whether it is a report, an email or a proposal, the key to truly effective business writing is being absolutely clear about what we want to say and what we want people to do, think or feel as a result of reading our writing. You will spend the day working on practical exercises and leave with tips and guidelines that will improve the quality of your written English in various types of business writing.

Course Objectives

• Understand the qualities of good written communication in business
• Use the appropriate type of document to deliver your written message – emails, reports etc.
• Avoid errors in usage, grammar and punctuation
• Construct clear, concise sentences in plain English
• Produce documents which are structured and presented in a professional manner
• Plan and structure a report to maximise its impact on the reader

Who will the Course benefit?

Anyone who feels they would like to improve their business writing and produce reports which have maximum impact.

Course Duration

1 day

Course Content

Written Communication in Business

· The role of written communication

· Types of business writing

· The qualities of good written communication

Grammar, Punctuation & Good Sentence Construction

• Why is there still such emphasis on being grammatically correct?
• Familiarising ourselves with grammatical terms – and putting them into practice
• Can we always rely on spell-check?
• Knowing what the most common mistakes are – and avoiding them!
• Why punctuate?
• How to punctuate correctly to make sense of our writing
• Avoiding the pitfalls of incorrect punctuation
• Sentence construction step by step
• Building paragraphs that guide your reader
• Cutting out unnecessary words and phrases or ‘padding’
• Writing to ensure accuracy, brevity and clarity
• Using plain English
• The end result – is it clear, accurate, professional?

Use of Email in Business

• Email - formal or informal ?
• Writing effective emails
• Email etiquette
• Maximising use of email – organising your inbox, using distribution lists, use of cc and bcc, flagging and rules, creating professional email signatures.

Report Writing

• Planning a report: purpose, audience, timetable, content, structure and style
• Creating an outline for a report before writing
• Structuring a report to ensure a logical flow
• Mind mapping a report's contents, to include visual aids and examples