About this Course

In an effort to provide more value-added services and retain loyal customers, increasingly, organisations are publishing newsletters, magazines, online articles and even books to accompany the products or service they sell. However, if the content of such publications is not well-planned or well-written, the initiative can backfire and customers’ goodwill could be lost. Often, the task of writing content for such publications falls on the marketing communications or corporate communications personnel who double up as writers. Such writers need to be versatile. They need to be able to write feature articles showcasing a person or product. They need to write informative pieces, giving advice or "how to" tips. They need to write analytical or persuasive commentaries to sway their readers to a course of action, a change of mindset or simply to accept something as a fact.

This course will focus on the whole writing process, from brainstorming ideas, planning the outline, writing a draft to revising and proofreading the final draft. Participants will also be introduced to the different writing styles for the different genres of feature writing, information pieces and analysis/commentaries. The course will focus primarily on print publications, though the top-down approach taken can also be applied to online articles.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the differences between the different writing styles – instructional, informative, descriptive, analytical and persuasive – and how to use the styles to fit the purpose of the article
  
• Learn how to do pre-writing planning including crafting an outline
  
• Organise ideas in different ways according to chronology, spatial aspects, importance, or general/specific
  
• Pick up tips on how to revise to get rid of clichés, redundant phrases and monotonous writing
  
• Be aware of the importance of the collation of words and word choice
  
• Apply proofreading strategies to correct typos and grammatical errors
  

*A laptop is essential for this course as participants are required to write three articles over two days. Participants should also be prepared to write individually and work in groups, and have their work critiqued by both fellow participants and trainer.

Course Outline:

Day 1

• The writing process: Macro to Mirco
  
• Pre-writing: Thinking about Subject, Audience, Purpose
  
• Different writing styles: instructional, informative, descriptive, analytical and persuasive
  
• Pre-writing: What is your main idea?
  
• Pre-writing: Planning an outline
  
• Writing skill: achieving chronological order and phrasing instructions
  
• Writing: Instructional / “how to” articles
  
• Writing skill: top-down approach, showcasing "what's in it for me" aspects for the reader
  
• Writing: Informative / descriptive press releases
  
• Be Simple, Be Brief: respecting the word limit
  
• Titling your articles
  

Day 2

• Writing Skill: Be specific and concrete, be concise, be creative
  
• Writing Skill: Parts of speech, word choice, word collation
  
• Writing Skill: Organising ideas spatially; chunking information
  
• Writing: Feature articles
  
• Writing: Blog and Facebook posts
  
• Writing Skill: rhetorical balance – logos, pathos and ethos
  
• Writing Skill: avoiding fallacies
  
• Writing Skill: persuading on fact, value and action
  
• Writing: Persuasive articles
  
• Post-writing: Editing for structure and organisation
  
• Post-writing: Revising for language – sentence structure, fragments and Subject-Verb Agreement
  
• Post-writing: Proofreading for grammar, spelling and typos
  

Who Will Benefit?

Marketing communications and corporate communications personnel who need to write articles or who are in charge of their organisation’s newsletters and magazines and those tasked to produce information sheets, educational materials will find this course beneficial.

Rate this course:

Log in to submit

Comments