Business Writing

Impact on the Organization

Writing documents that are clear, concise and error-free is essential for a business to prosper. Documents that are difficult to read usually will go unread! Your message may be lost because the messenger is unable to plainly disseminate the information. By giving employees the tools they need to improve the documents they write in the line of work, you increase the flow and understanding of information, which ultimately impacts the bottom line.

Learning Objectives

• Business Writing Basics
• Causes of poor writing
• Qualities of effective business writing
• Five Criteria for Effective Messages
• Discussion and examples
• The Writing Process in 3 Steps
• Overview: Planning, Drafting, and Revising
• Audience Analysis
• Planning your message
• The Quick Draft
• Drafting your message
• Organizing Information
• Organizing through questions: Exercise
• Parallel structure
• Peer Review
• Exercise
• Using E-mail Effectively
• Uses and Abuses
• Online Writing Basics
• How online documents differ from paper documents
• How readers read e-mail documents
• Common problems in writing and reading e-mail documents
• Samples of effective and ineffective e-mail messages
• Testing Online Readability
• Five principles of readability
• Revising Techniques
• Macro- and Micro-revising
• Using Active/Passive Voice
• Peer Reviews
• Revising Practice
• Creating a Professional Style
• Focusing on the "real" subject
• Using action verbs
• Deleting empty phrases
• Peer Editing Practice
• Discussion and Final Comments

Program Description

Writing for Results covers strategies that help writers quickly plan, draft, and revise business documents that get results. Participants learn how to identify readers' needs, define writing objectives, organize information, and format documents for quick reading. One-day and longer formats are available.

The workshop emphasizes both product (what is an effective document) and process (how do you create an effective document). It includes short lectures on writing topics and strategies. Participants will analyze document samples, evaluate each others’ writing, and perform a self-assessment of their writing progress.

Once the workshop is over, participants will receive a booklet that they can refer back to, reminding them of tools and techniques they learned over the course of the class.

Time Investment

Typically 8 hours.

Customization

This program can be customized to include your organization’s procedures, policies, cases, examples and terminology. Kindly inquire about these consulting services.

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