Customizable Courses

Oral Communication Skills

Writing Skills

Write to the Point – People have a finite amount of attention - the length of the written page if you are lucky - to read your message. Learn how to assess your audience, write succinctly to that audience, declutter and convey your point, clearly, concisely and as positively as possible.

Better Business Writing – Do your letters, memos and e-mails inform, educate, persuade or position your message appropriately? Effective writing conveys a message in the sender's style while packaged in an appropriate format. Practice writing letters, memos and e-mails that make your point and get results.  Learn business writing skills and techniques that establish a relationship with your reader including active vs. passive voice, decluttering, positive positioning and much more.

Making Your Writing More Marketing-Driven – Are you positioning that letter, memo or e-mail as a marketing tool?  In some instances, that communications may be your only chance to establish a relationship with the recipient.  Learn how to make your communications relate better to your audience and foster the need for a time-critical response.  Participants will be asked to bring samples of documents they have generated or received to these business writing workshops seminars for review and improvement, in addition to creating new documents with targeted messages.

Grammar for Professionals - Have you’ve ever wondered where to place commas or when to use who or whom? This fast-paced, interactive course provides a quick and efficient review of grammar and also covers the latest trends in word usage.  The instructor uses relevant examples and a hands-on workbook to illustrate her points.  The class is ideal for business, creative and academic writers who want to improve their communication skills by learning about sentence structure, word choice, spelling and other key grammatical principles.

Write and Re-Write – Struggling with a specific document? In this hands-on application, we will look at your goals and progress to date on a particular project. We’ll organize the points to be made, assess the format options available, review the audience profile and establish the style that will be most effective for this document.

The Point of PowerPoint – Speakers who include everything they plan to say on each PowerPoint slide become nothing more than disembodied voices reading to the audience.  PowerPoint content should be key word/key phrase driven, concise and supportive of the presenter.  Determine what will make your PowerPoints more effective and motivate the audience to relate to you, not the technology.

Finessing the Feature Article – The ability to turn research into provocative, easily-grasped summaries spells the difference between a poorly written feature article and an effective feature article.  Discover how to establish a point of view, grab attention, maintain a thru-line and generate copy that enables readers to solve problems and create opportunities-or just walk away with new information that may be pertinent in the future.  The course includes general points on clear writing, the anatomy of a feature article, and hands-on practice.