Writing Tips Designed to Stick

My seminars typically take a morning and last between 2 ½ hours and 3 hours. When I teach, I assume that your employees basically know how to write. If that is not true or if your employees have specialized writing needs, I can extend the seminar.

I can also present one and two-day seminars.

The first substantive lesson in my typical seminar is about the passive voice: why to avoid it, when it's OK to use it, and how to spot it.

I go on to teach about avoiding nominalizations (“make an assessment” is a nominalization for “assess”); preferring verbs over nouns; using one idea per sentence; not playing the synonym game; and other topics.

Every seminar participant uses and keeps two texts. The first is my book, Kissing Legalese Goodbye, which is a compilation of legalese to avoid and the everyday words and phrases to use instead.

The second text I use is a workbook, with writing exercises that I lead seminar participants through. It makes the seminars low-tech interactive.

I don't lecture literally or figuratively. I am aware that some people are defensive about their writing, and that others get self-conscious when they realize they are speaking with a writing instructor. I aim and succeed at putting people at ease.

And my writing tips stick.

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