Business Writing Solutions
Morning
Advanced Techniques for Writing Success
- Understanding sentence structure and using it for impact
- The importance of the opening sentence
- Using different constructions to maintain interest
- Phrases and clauses, and their functions in sentences
- When you should write a longer sentence!
- Active verbs and active voice: the keys to power
- Parallelism: an effective writing technique
- Who did what? Replacing misplaced modifiers
In a memo written to her boss:
“I can now envision creating one-page memos. How long have you dreamed of receiving something that short from me? I recommend this class for everyone.”
Marty Morgan
Office of the Assessor
English Language and its Usage
- How did it ever get to be so complicated?
- Where our rules come from
- Why we have so many problems
- Little-known and understood facts about English
- Rules you can break, and get away with it
- Usage in speaking counts, too!
Writing Mechanics
- Challenges with spelling
- Good news/bad news/good news about spelling
- How to increase your spelling power, in six easy steps
- Word pairs we confuse, to our embarrassment (or much worse)
- Punctuation matters! Here's why
- The most common punctuation errors, and what they do to us
- Exercises to build your skills and confidence
- Valuable reference pages for future use
Afternoon
Grammar Issues
- Good news: most of us don't make a lot of grammatical mistakes
- Bad news: we keep making the same ones, over and over
- Parts of speech and their functions in writing
- Subject and verb agreement: it's not always as easy as it seems
- Those darned irregular verbs
- Sticky problems with pronouns
- Can't tell your adjectives from your adverbs? We'll show you!
The Final Step: Proofreading
- How proofreading differs from editing
- Why the way we read doesn't help
- Specific tips for greater proofreading accuracy
- The marks of proofreading, and why we should use them
- Scanning: the single most effective proofreading step
- Five ways to eliminate errors from your writing
- The most important question of business writing (now we know it!)