Business Writing Training

Business writing classes ensure that participants can write for audiences and be understood. Sometimes, writing emails, letters, memos, and performance evaluations can cause great difficulty. People encounter problems when they try to communicate with colleagues and managers in an organization if their writing skills aren’t “up to the task”.

If writing causes confusion; if word choice is misleading; if communication in your business causes people to say, “What?” instead of, “I understand,” then addressing these problems with Business writing classes to improve skills is the solution.

Business Grammar & Usage

an eight-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Business people who know grammar judge others based on their correct (or incorrect) usage.

Be the professional who is able to be clear and correct in business writing. Business Grammar & Usage: ENGLISH BOOT CAMP is the answer for today’s business competitive environment. Interactive instruction and collaboration with your fellow attendees means that you will master the skills and apply your new knowledge to the classroom exercises and activities. When you return to work, you’ll have new confidence about what is right and wrong, when it comes to writing.

Attendees will be able to:

• Know the Parts of Speech and their correct uses;
• Understand Sentence Structure, including applying rules for Subject-Verb and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement;
• Be able to create Plurals and Possessives accurately and with certainty;
• Review and use the rules of Spelling, Mechanics (Capitalization, Abbreviation, Number Use), and Punctuation;
• Create original email / documents to employ newly-learned class material.

Effective Business Writing

an eight-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Be a better and more confident writer.

Master skills that are necessary in today’s competitive business environment. Learn to write in a way that elevates you with increased confidence and enthusiasm. The focus of Effective Business Writing training is how to organize ideas and communicate clearly. This class will show you how to write concisely with conviction. For business professionals who have written contact with others, these areas of development are necessary. Improved written English means increased internal and external customer satisfaction.

Attendees will be able to:

• Get document-writing started, increasing efficiency;
• Gain greater awareness of audience and how to communicate ideas effectively;
• Organize writing, following guidelines for appropriate style;
• Write correctly and successfully, eliminating the need for constant revision;
• Edit writing with confidence; and
• Communicate more clearly, fostering an increased perception of expertise.

Business Grammar & Usage AND/OR Effective Business Writing – LIGHT

a six-, four-, or two-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Word Power & “Write” Insights This customizable workshop will give you the tools and resources to be a powerful and clear writer

In this seminar, you will learn how to organize your thoughts and start the writing process without pulling your hair out! Participants become confident in developing their business writing style, proofreading, and putting the finishing touches on their documents. Hands-on practice enables participants to write clearly, concisely and professionally. Use this class to be more compelling and error-free in writing.

Topics:

• Audience Awareness
• Tone / perception / audience
• The writing process (planning, drafting, revising)
• Agreement (including Who vs. Whom)
• Plurals and Possessives
• Writing Style / Language Choice (including Gender-fair language, Redundancies)
• Proofreading
• Commonly Confused Words
• Reducing wordiness
• E-mail etiquette
• Spelling
• Mechanics
• Punctuation

Email Etiquette

a two-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Front-line communication affects public perception of every company.

This training gets you to organize ideas and communicate clearly. As a result of this session, you will be able to be more concise and communicate with conviction. You will be more productive, increase performance satisfaction, and create a true dialogue with your audience. For professionals who must meet the needs of the public, these areas of development are the right thing. Improved communications means increased internal and external customer satisfaction.

Attendees will be able to:

• Identify audience and determine purpose, increasing efficiency;
• Organize structure and style of writing to increase professionalism;
• Write correct, successful emails, increasing profitability and reducing wasted time;
• Build rapport by responding with diplomacy and providing solutions for challenging issues;
• Communicate more clearly and positively, fostering an increased perception of expertise; and
• Be better at articulating needs, procedures, and results, facilitating greater productivity.

Résumé Writing, Networking, & Interviewing

an eight-hour training session for up to 10 participants

It’s time to move on—or maybe you’ve been “in transition” for too long.

Either way, you need some input so that you know what others see when they look at your résumé.

Your résumé will win—or lose—an interview for you. If it makes you stand out from the crowd, then it is successful. If you are perceived as “just like everybody else,” then it’s time to revise and improve the document that represents you on paper.

Topics:

• Résumé Preparation
• Résumé Formatting
• Cover Letter
• Principles of Networking
• Mock Interviews

Writing Performance Evaluations

a four-hour training session for up to 20 participants

By working on Performance Evaluation-writing skills (being clear and specific), and using Employee Self-Evaluation techniques, leaders in your company can be prepared with a clear and systematic approach to appropriate and consistently reliable evaluations. In addition, this session reviews how to avoid problematic documentation and evaluator errors.

Topics:

• Need for evaluations
• Benefits of proper evaluations
• Dangers of improper/poor evaluations
• Performance Evaluation-writing skills (clear and specific)
• Employee Self-Evaluation Forms
• Components of the review and Employee Evaluation Form
• Avoiding problematic documentation
• Avoiding evaluator errors
• ACTIVITY: Writing a Performance Evaluation

Attendees will be able to:

• Understand and apply clear communication principles to managing employees and evaluating performance;
• Describe specific behaviors and guide employees to effective and acceptable job performance; and
• Increase morale and collegiality through clear and open communication.

Introduction to Technical Writing

Attendees will be able to:

• Organize writing, following guidelines for appropriate technical style;
• Gain greater awareness of audience and how to communicate ideas effectively;
• Communicate more clearly and positively, fostering an increased perception of expertise;
• Write correctly and successfully, eliminating the need for constant revision; and
• Evaluate for the best delivery mode for your audience.

Writing an Executive Summary

a four-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Executives are busy and will decide if your ideas will get further attention based on your Executive Summary.

This single short document, a prime example of business writing, is your chance to tell the reader why to (not) do something. The GOAL is to grab the reader’s attention, inviting her/him to read further.

Topics:

• Audience Awareness
• Planning and organization
• Strategic Communication for Senior Management
• Avoiding Errors For Greater Credibility
• Ensuring Brevity and Efficiency
• Conveying a Positive Tone
• Formatting – The Finishing Touches
• Style, Appearance

Attendees will be able to:

• Reduce the essence of their ideas down to a page.
• Decide what is important, and discard nonessential info.
• Tell their story in as few words as possible.

Minute-Taking

a two-hour training session for up to 20 participants

Minutes are the official permanent record of the business of meetings, and serve to document the outcome of decisions.

They also help future leaders understand how the group has operated in the past.

Topics:

• Before the Meeting
• Purpose
• Preparation
• Content
• Format
• Language
• What to include/not include
• Finishing Touches