This course will teach you advanced writing techniques that can take your writing from good to great. Every day, we use words to persuade others to buy from us, to hire or promote us, to establish our credibility and reputation. We write to change the way people think, feel and act. It is essential that the words you choose and the way you use them are working for you as hard as they can.
Writing well is a vital part of any successful career or business. If you want to thrive at work you need to thrive at writing. By the end of this course, you will have developed advanced writing skills that will propel your career or business to the next level.
In this course, you will master more advanced writing techniques. It’s divided into five parts:
Part One - Good Writing: First, we’ll discuss what makes writing ‘good’. Why something we read or hear stands out, why we enjoy it, trust it or understand it more than something else. We’ll examine the use of metaphor and humour, explore how playing with variety and rhythm in your language can bring your words to life and ensure its authenticity.
Part Two - Structure: Why does structure matter so much? What are the most common and effective structures? What’s the best way to present an argument? And how can we use different structures in the writing we do each and every day?
Part Three - Storytelling: People love stories and learning to write good ones is one of the most potent tools in your writer’s toolkit. We’ll show you how they work, how to write them, and how to use stories in your everyday writing.
Part Four - Practicalities: In this section, we’ll look at some of the more practical aspects of writing and presenting work, including the importance of research, proper formatting and advanced editing techniques. We’ll also address two of the biggest writing challenges that many of us face: writing for non-native English speakers, and writing within an organisation or company, where there are often tight constraints on what and how you write.
Part Five: Applying what you’ve learned: It’s now time to put everything together and apply these lessons to different types of document. We’ll cover writing articles, social media posts, speeches, presentations and press releases.
Throughout the course there will be short exercises and quizzes so you can check your understanding and hone your skills.
This course is taught by Mark Morris and Philip Fiske de Gouveia.