Writing Skills: Write for Results

Course Overview

Write for Results will dramatically improve your writing to inform, influence and persuade. You will learn modern business English rules as well as layout best practice and the basics of emails, reports and letters. The course concentrates on getting your key message across and being aware of the results you want your communication to have. This focus helps you achieve clarity, brevity and impact in your communication.

This workshop is built around a series of practical exercises designed to help delegates develop and consolidate writing skills in a safe and supportive environment. Delegates will learn to self-critique, and will receive constructive feedback on their work throughout the workshops.

People will understand you and respond more positively to you. You will encounter less resistance and frustration with your ideas. Being able to express yourself clearly and in the correct way will change the way you are seen and if research is anything to go by: will do more for your promotion prospects than any technical skill you could learn.

Audience

This entry level course will suit all those wanting to improve the standard of their written English as well as those needing to improve the impact they make by creating clearer more professional messages, reports and letters.

Skills Gained

By the end of the course, delegates will be able to:

• Recognise what the key elements of communication are
• Recognise the mistakes that stop them being understood
• Understand what others want from them
• Develop their writing skills - for both documents and emails
• Identify and meet the needs of their readers
• Create structure for their messages for maximum effect
• Have the ability to choose language and style that will achieve greater success in informing, influencing and persuading others

• Experience of writing a number of sample documents
• Practice at starting and ending powerfully
• Build confidence in gathering ideas and presenting them
• Gaining form others experience and ideas
• Practice at using and polishing your writing skills
• Interact with other people with different writing styles and learn how to improve your style to sound more like you
• Present documents in a way that is more attractive and accessible to readers

Course Outline

Introduction & Welcome

• You will meet other delegates and share your reasons for wanting to be able to write better.
• An experienced, friendly trainer will help you visualise where you want this course to take you.

Communicate Effectively

• This session is practical in nature with delegates exploring in teams the things that annoy them / mistakes that happen when people write badly. You will also look at what makes a piece of writing effective.
• You use flip chart paper to record communication issues with other delegates and present back to the group.

Identify the Objectives

• Without a purpose writing is a waste of time. If you do not understand what outcome you want neither will your audience. You will learn how to assess the key message for your writing and what the purpose of your email or document is.
• You will look at various pieces of writing and assess their purpose and also think about some sample documents / emails of your own.

Gather the Facts

• You will be shown how to plan and brain storm with mind maps what content you need. You will learn about prioritising and researching the information from various sources.
• You will practice sorting information into logical orders and try mind mapping.

Build a Route Map

• We will look at ways of organising your information and structure for your documents and email. We will also share best practice amongst the group.
• You will practice some simple structuring techniques and re-write some emails to make them better. Bring your own examples to use for maximum benefit.

Choosing a Style

• You will discover your own personal style as well as experiencing various styles of writing. You will learn what makes writing come alive, in terms of headings and personality. You will learn what is appropriate in modern business English and what is more safely avoided.
• You will practice techniques like the active voice to improve your style.

Creating the Draft

• This section is all about how to write that first draft, how to get started if it is a long document, how to keep it snappy if it is an email or letter. You will learn how to open and close powerfully as well as layout techniques.
• You will look at various layouts and discuss their use.

Finishing Touches

• You will look here at proof reading checking for clarity, errors, redundancy as well as checking things like page numbers, table of contents in long documents and spellings of names etc in emails and letters.
• You will practice techniques to make the final version 'sparkle'.

Action Planning

• Here you will note down your major steps to take back to the office to ensure you carry through all the best practice and good work you have started on the course.
• You will create an action plan.