customizable courseware

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Advanced Writing Skills

Agenda
Session One: Introduction and Course Overview

8:45-9:00

Icebreaker: Top Ten Challenges

9:00-10:15

Session Two: The Three Cs

10:15-10:30

Break

10:30-11:15

Session Three: Grammar and Writing Mechanics

11:15-11:45

Session Four: Determining Readability

11:45-12:00

Morning Wrap-Up

12:00-1:00

Lunch

1:00-1:15

Energizer: Almanac

1:15-2:30

Session Five: Writing Letters

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2:30-2:45

8:30-8:45

Session Six: Dealing with Specific Requests

2:45-3:00

Session Seven: E-mail Etiquette

3:00-4:15

Session Eight: Business Documents

4:15-4:30

Workshop Wrap-Up

Session One: Course Overview

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Discuss your writing challenges.

Learn how to make your writing clear, concise, and
correct.
Improve sentence construction and paragraph
development.
Identify some ways to make your writer simpler and
easier to read.
Learn about a tool that can determine how readable
your work is.
Develop effective business letters for tough situations.
Discuss e-mail etiquette.
Develop an appropriate writing style and format for your
letters, business cases, and reports.
Recognize standard ways of documenting materials.

Session Two: The Three Cs

Avoid:
Jargon
Slang

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Use:
Familiar Words
Concrete Nouns

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Writing Clearly

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Writing Concisely

Session Two: The Three Cs

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Use the active voice when

possible.
Watch out for adverbs.
Dont be redundant.
Eliminate empty words.

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Writing Correctly

Session Two: The Three Cs

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Style: Style guide, spelling and

grammar
Factual: Is the content of the
message correct?

Session Two: The Three Cs

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What are some possible resources for each of

these projects?
Brochure with time management tips
University paper on dinosaurs
Newspaper article on the emergence of
Internet fraud
Internal company e-mail on budget items
Company memo recommending a product
Training presentation on goal setting

Session Three:
Grammar and Writing Mechanics

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Parallelism
Style/Tone
Empathy/Reader Benefit
Emphasis
Sentence Unity
Sentence Structure
Paragraphs

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Seven Ways to Simplify Your Writing:

Session Three:
Grammar and Writing Mechanics

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More on Paragraphs

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Unity: In good paragraphs, the emphasis is on

oneness.
Coherence: Coherence is achieved by carefully
organizing your thoughts/material.
Emphasis: The paragraph closer is just slightly
more important than the opener. Both are necessary.
Rhythm: You should also vary the length and
structure of your sentences so the pace of your
writing doesnt become too monotonous or too
choppy.

Session Three:
Grammar and Writing Mechanics

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The active voice is:

Direct
Reduces length
Clarifies the sentence
Produces a crisper, more vital style

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The passive voice is:

Indirect
Reverses the normal subject-verb-object pattern
Includes some form of the verb be, followed by a
past participle
Usually considered weak, obscure, wordy

Session Four: Readability

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Mark out samples of 100 words each.

Divide the number of words in all the samples by
the number of sentences. This will give you the
average sentence length.
Count the number of words of three or more
syllables in each 100 words. Dont count proper or
words which are combinations of short, easy words.
Add the average sentence length and the number of
hard words (as determined in the previous step)
per hundred.
Multiply the sum by 0.4. The resulting number
corresponds to the grade-level reading ability.

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Letterhead
Dateline
Notations
Inside Address
Attention line
Subject/Reference
lines
7. Salutation
8. Body
9. Complimentary close
10.Signature Block
11.Identification Section

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Session Five: Writing Letters