The ability to communicate clearly is an important skill. Many of today’s inter-personal communication take place through writing. Targeted, concise and persuasive text can make all the difference when trying to convince someone of your ideas, services or products. Achieving results through proposals, reports, technical texts, emails, memos, etc. depends on your ability to successfully persuade your readers and help them understand your ideas and act on them.

This comprehensive course focuses on all aspects of writing business texts, documents, reports, etc. that are used regularly in most jobs and professions. It covers the full life cycle of writing, starting from understanding the audience, collecting material, planning the structure, organising, writing clearly, styling, presentation and the general strategy required to make the text more convincing and targeted.

The course contains a variety of detailed sessions, each focusing on different aspects of this life cycle. Each session provides step-by-step guidelines on how to approach the subject and is followed by exercises where delegates can immediately practice the skill.

Research shows that the best way to learn is by example. All sessions contain specific examples that show exactly how recommended guidelines can be implemented in practice. Examples of good and bad text are carefully constructed to show what works and what doesn’t, so delegates can quickly apply those guidelines while participating in training exercises and later to real-world scenarios.

In this highly practical course delegates will learn:

Report Writing Strategy

• How people read and what are the implications for an author?
• What do you need to consider before writing?
• What is the ideal structure of a technical writing or report?
• How to think of your purpose to make your writing activity easier
• What is the ideal tense to use in report writing?
• When should you write in first-person, second-person or third-person?

Persuading Readers

• What are the common persuasion tactics employed by authors?
• What are the differences between direct and indirect approaches to persuasion?
• When should you go for global view in contrast with the details?
• When should you explain complex content in contrast with simple content?
• How to sequence your content based on common dimensions, such as urgency, importance and chronology

Collecting and Organising Content

• What is the most effective way to prepare content for writing reports?
• How to exploit the visual power of your brain through mind mapsand organise your content
• How to increase your creativity using simple yet powerful tools and techniques

Styling and Presentation

• How to use headings
• How to increase the visual impact of your presentation to get maximum effect
• How to use tables, graphs, bullet points, margins, etc. to enhance your message
• What are the most effective styles such as fonts, font sizes, effects, paginations and line spacing? How to use these styles to make your message clearer, without distracting the reader through overuse of these effects?

Increasing the Impact through Language

• How to deliver your message as quickly and clearly as possible
• What are the common techniques employed by professional writers in delivering an engaging text?
• How to make your message viral
• How to avoid vague writing that can lead to misunderstanding
• How to use technical terms to serve your message
• What is an ideal tone to convince a reader and keep him engaged?
• How to sequence your statements to make them more convincing

Using Clear English

• How to increase the clarity of your English using simpler sentence structures
• How to use action verbs
• How to warm up the reader before explaining potentially complex topics

High Impact Summaries

• How to structure executive summaries
• How to plan summaries to get best results
• Which areas need more focus and are read more frequently?

Writing Titles that Grab Attention

• How to use proven formulas used by mass media to create engaging titles
• How to create catchy or descriptive headlines

Selling Your Ideas

• How to write to sell
• How to structure your text to convince your audience of your cause
• How to appeal to emotions