Writing for Government (Refining Documents)

About this course

Releasing poor quality documents can cause reputational damage, reduce effectiveness and have a negative impact on productivity. Avoid these problems by editing and proofreading documents to ensure they are fit for purpose with this one day workshop. *Writing for Government (Refining Documents) is part four of four for the Writing for Government suite.

Materials Required: All materials will be provided. Please bring refreshment for the day. Tea, coffee, and water will be available free of charge. There is also a café in H block if you wish to purchase your morning tea and lunch.

Additional Information: - Note: Writing for Government (Refining Documents) is part four of four for the Writing for Government suite. -

Key Topics:
The key topics for this course are:
- topic one: editing process
- topic two: readability and accessibility
- topic three: structural and substance review
- topic four: language and visual consistency
- topic five: common errors
- topic six: legal issues.

This course is a practical workshop, which focuses on active learning though discussion, activities, case studies and critical thinking. The first session focuses on the editing process and readability. You will then be guided through case studies and activities to develop skills in editing the structure, content, language and presentation of documents. Later, you will critically analyse documents to provide you with techniques to eliminate ambiguity and create readable documents.

The course uses a workbook with tips and techniques for improving your editing skills.

The workbook includes a checklist that will be useful when you are refining documents in your workplace.

Learning Outcome:
At the end of this course you will be able to:
- describe the process for editing documents
- understand Australian literacy levels and conduct a readability analysis
- confirm purpose and accessibility requirements
- refine the structure, substance, language and visual consistency of a document
- correct common grammar and punctuation errors
- describe legal issues such as copyright, plagiarism and defamation
- provide constructive suggestions and feedback to writers.