This two-day course is aimed at managers who have to use business and report writing skills to communicate their business ideas accurately and effectively to their readers. The training focuses on basic skills like planning, layout of and writing a business report. The course also focuses on using correct language and grammar as well as pointing out common language mistakes that are often made.
Who should attend?
- Middle management level employees
- Supervisors
- Team leaders
Workshop outline
Different types of technical/business reports
- Business reports
- Technical background reports
- Primary research reports
- Business plans
- Technical specifications
Before you start writing
- How to make decisions on the objective, the audience and what information to focus on
Layout of reports
- What every report should contain
- General layout
- Sections and section numbering
- Visual aids
Writing the report
- The format
- Major components of a business report
- Procedure for report writing
- Summary and checklist
Using plain English: style
- Readability
- Sentence and paragraph length
- Bullet points and enumerated lists
- Using the simplest words and expressions possible
- Avoiding unnecessary words and repetition
- Using verbs instead of nouns
- Using active rather than passive style
- Explain new ideas clearly
- Use consistent naming of the same “things”
- Painless political correctness
- Constructing paragraphs
Using plain English: the mechanics
- Avoiding common vocabulary and spelling errors
- Abbreviations
- Punctuation
Useful tools
- Symptoms and cures for writer’s block
- Brainstorming
- The Reframing Matrix
- Concept Fan