Freelance Writing II (Advanced) 100 Hours Certificate Course

1 Introduction

• Basic Writing Skills
• Sentences and Phrases
• Writing Effective Sentences
• Choosing Effective Words
• Paragraphs
• Punctuation
• Summarising Skills
• Key Points to Remember When Summarising a Piece of Writing
• Types of Writing
• Theme Development
• Writing an Analogy
• Writing a Balanced Theme

2 Writing a Regular Column

• Writing Columns
• Newsletters and New Columns
• Know Your Audience
• The Importance of Headlines
• Writing Headlines
• Writing and Producing a Newsletter
• Newsletter Items
• Writing Critical Reviews
• What is a Critical Review?
• Theatre Reviews
• Film Reviews
• Book Reviews

3 Educational Writing

• Educational Writing
• Concise Wording
• Referencing
• Illustrations and Captions: Line drawings, Technical Illustrations, Half Tones, Maps, Tables, Graphs
• Combining Graphics and Text
• Captions and Labels: The Importance of Captions
• Taking Photos for Publication
• Basic Principles of Composing Photos
• Composition
• Time

4 Technical Writing

• Technical Writing
• Characteristics of Technical Writing
• Some Golden Rules for Technical Writing
• Basic Parts of a Document
• Main Elements of a Technical Document: Front Matter, The Body, End Matter
• Use Jargon Appropriately
• Use Gender Neutral Language
• Use Simple Sentences
• Avoid Passive and Unnecessary Words
• Use an Active Voice
• Active or Passive voice?
• Use Imperatives
• Imperative versus Active Voice
• Selecting First, Second or Third Person
• Guidelines for Writing Directions
• Creating a Technical Document
• Writing Technical Specifications
• Writing Journal Abstracts
• Some Guidelines for Writing Journal Abstracts
• Abstracts versus Summaries

5 Writing a Biographical Story

• Writing Biographies
• Creating a Biography
• Interviewing Skills
• Interviewing Procedure
• Asking Questions
• Types of Questions
• Ways of Handling Difficult Questions
• Writing a Personal Biography
• General points about your own life story
• Be careful how you use verb tenses

6 Writing a News Article

• Newsworthy Articles
• News Values
• Storyline
• Writing a News Article
• Email Newsletters

7 Fiction Writing

• Writing Fiction That Sells
• Types of Fiction
• Characteristics of Category Fiction
• Characteristics of Mainstream Fiction
• Imagination
• Being Informed
• Human Behaviour
• Writing out titles for stories
• Developing a story from an opening sentence
• Developing a Story
• Components of a Story
• Theme
• Plot
• Characterisation
• Characters in a Romance Novel
• Setting
• Style
• Glossary of Terms in Fiction Writing

8 Other Writing Styles

• Writing TV & Radio Scripts
• TV Formats
• A Presentation for a Comedy or Drama Series
• Script Writing Jargon
• The Plot
• Procedure for Developing a Story
• Plants
• Revising a Script
• Exploratory Research
• Attitudes
• Common Problems
• Procedure for Conducting a Survey
• Form of Data Collected
• Writing Science Fiction
• One Method of Writing a Science Fiction Story
• Writing for the Web
• How Material is Published Online
• Management Systems
• Online readers want sites that are informative and easy to navigate
• Online publishing is not a static medium
• Key Rules
• Planning
• Using Links

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the Academy, marked by the Academy's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.