Writing Skills

Consultants’ documents need to meet high standards. A good report will convince a client to take action where a poor document may fail; and all readers tend to use the quality of proposals and reports to judge the professionalism of a consultancy team. This course is designed for consultants who want to write better and to spend less time doing it.

All professionals and other specialist service providers who need to write persuasively to clients and colleagues will find this training of value.

By the end of this course you should have improved your ability to write persuasively and concisely, conveying your meaning more powerfully to the reader. You will learn how to:

• define the aims of a document in terms of the desired result: who are the readers and what do we want them to do or believe
• create a structure that tells a compelling story and holds the client's interest
• write in a style that appeals to the busy manager skimming the headlines and the critical reader of every detail

Participants need to bring to the workshop a document they have prepared during their normal work. There will be practical exercises in each session based on this document and other examples of business writing. The workshop starts with a discussion of the natural abilities everyone can bring to writing and there are exercises throughout the day to build confidence.

• Introduction: objectives for the day related to participants' experience ;how good writing makes a difference ;our innate skills: a sense of logic and an ear for language
• Purpose: defining the purpose of a document and understanding the client's thinking, so that the writer can decide how best to achieve the desired result; how to select only material that moves the reader towards the defined goal
• Structure: The use of a storyboard to develop an effective structure before starting to write and so avoiding wasting effort, particularly important for team writing; report structures that grab and hold the reader's attention, including the application of classic story-telling; the use of headings, first paragraphs, first sentences and first words to allow speed-reading; some lessons from journalism
• Style: discussion of the guiding principles and when to choose different styles to match different readers; the essentials of good use of English and document layout, to provide clarity for the readers and avoid distracting errors; words that work' and other ideas for adding interest and life to reports
• Action plans: each participant develops their own action plan

Every participant of this workshop will also take away a list of Published Style Guides and Websites for quick reference; a Step-By-Step Guide to writing a document; and our own Proof-Reading Checklist.

This course is delivered as an intensive one-day session on an in-house basis.