Business Writing Skills

The writing process
The problems associated with one way communication
Business writing today
The image you create through your written word

The 4 step process
Using spidergrams to organise ideas and to increase speed of writing
Identifying the reader
Composing from the spidergram and learning to write quickly
The editing process

Recognising people’s ability to comprehend and retain information
Techniques for adding clarity to your writing …

• Formatting techniques
• Main message first
• Passive / active voice
• Sentence length and structure
• Word choice
• Grammar techniques
• Positive phraseology
• Conversation style
• Personal pronouns

Overall aim – to focus on the customer needs
Defining the format and style required by the organisation
Organising large amounts of information
Basic proposal report layout – using the template
Using customer terminology
Incorporating a Cost Benefit Analysis
What should be included in the body & what should be in an appendix
Being persuasive
Golden Gems – do’s and don’ts
Writing Executive summaries
Editing overlays
Format: the need for uniformity throughout the document
Visual presentation of the proposal

A key component of the course involves participants completing a pre-course questionnaire and submitting some examples of their written work, to ensure the course is designed more closely around individual needs. Extracts of participant work are also used for exercises during the course.

The course is presented by an experienced trainer who is also a published author.
Over a 12 month period, more than one hundred staff in the State Revenue Office attended the course, consistently rating it as “highly beneficial”.