Essential Writing Skills for the Public Sector

About this course

People are often quick to make judgements about competence and performance based on the quality of a written document. This workshop will improve your ability to write for any organisation. You will learn about modern grammar, punctuation and convention preferences. You'll learn to analyse the reading ability, time tolerances of your audience and assess documents against reading levels. As well as develop an understanding of strategic context, purpose statements and the construct of recommendations in formal documents.

Materials Required: All materials will be provided.

Additional Information: Key Topics:
The key topics for this course are:
- topic one: creating readable documents
- topic two: public sector grammar preferences
- topic three: public sector punctuation and style conventions
- topic four: identifying and eliminating ambiguity and common errors
- topic five: writing and reviewing purpose statements and recommendations
- topic six: structuring paragraphs, lists and documents.

This course is a practical workshop which focuses on active learning through discussion, activities, case studies and critical thinking. It addresses reader analysis and the grammar of public sector writing. This includes learning about sentence structure, tense, tone and voice. You will be guided through modern punctuation and style conventions in the public sector. You will also learn about document frameworks and the generation of content. We will then review examples of government documents to analyse fitness for purpose, identify ambiguity and correct common errors.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this short course you will be able to:
- differentiate between government and other writing styles
- apply government grammar, punctuation and style conventions
- write clear and concise sentences using plain English techniques
- use thinking tools to develop content
- structure paragraphs, lists and short documents
- write purpose statements and recommendations
- analyse the readability of documents
- identify common grammar, punctuation and style errors.