Brush Up on the Basics

Kathy Sole is available to conduct half- or full-day "Brush Up on the Basics" workshops at your location in the U.S. Workshops can be customized to meet the specific needs of your organization. Below are summaries of the topics most often covered in our workshops.

An innovative, fast-paced, and practical workshop for everyone who writes as part of the job. Workshop Highlights:

• Review the most common punctuation, grammar, and usage errors that business writers make.
• Brush up on the most important rules you need to know for effective business writing—explained in easy-to-understand language.
• Learn handy "tricks of the trade" to remember the rules.
• Take home an autographed copy of the What's the Rule? book, a set of the laminated guides, or the What's the Rule? CD, along with comprehensive workshop handout materials.
• Review key points of the workshop with an entertaining computer quiz show—complete with sound effects and prizes for the winners!

Topics:

• Punctuation Pointers
  • You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a Good First Impression
  • Seven Simple Comma Rules
  • Simple Rules for Semicolons, Colons, Hyphens, and Dashes
    
    
• Grammar and Usage—Common Errors
  • Recognizing Subjects, Verbs, and Prepositions
  • Subject-Verb Agreement
  • Pronoun Problems
  • Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
  • Commonly Confused Words
    
    
• Sentence Problems
  • Sentence Combining
  • Active and Passive Voice
  • Parallelism
  • Eliminating Clutter

The morning session covers the topics shown above for the half-day workshop. Topics for the afternoon session will be customized to meet the needs of the organization and workshop participants. Possible topics may include the following:

• Addressing and Formatting Letters and Memos in the 21st Century
• Rules for Communicating Routine Information
• Rules for Communicating Bad News and Negative Information
• E-Mail Correspondence and Etiquette
• Proposals and Persuasive Communications
• Communicating With Staff (Directives, Performance Appraisals, and Letters of Recommendation or Reprimand)
• Report Writing Techniques (Business and Investigative Reports)
• Writing Policies, Procedures, and Instructions
• Using a Step-by-Step Process to Write More Quickly and Efficiently
• Improving Correspondence Tone, Image, and Style
• Computer Editing Tools

Workshop fees typically range between $600 and $1,500 for up to 25 participants, with a $40 materials fee per participant. Fees include all course preparation and customization of course content; instruction fee; a copy of the What's the Rule? book, set of laminated guides, or CD for each participant; all workshop handout and instructional materials; and photocopy and binding expenses. We are located in western Washington. Expenses for travel out of the area, lodging, and meals are billed at cost. Contact us at jsole@writeso.com or call us at either (360) 297-4650 or toll-free at 1-877-405-2173 for more information and/or scheduling.