Distance-learning courses
Writing skills have never been more important. Clear written communications build good relationships with customers and colleagues, whereas bad writing can damage your business and your career prospects.
Take websites, for example. Most businesses, from multinational corporations to small guest houses, have a website that will be seen by thousands of potential customers. If the writing is clear and well expressed, with the main news upfront, it gives a favourable first impression. If the writing is clumsy and slipshod, with the main news hidden, it gives a bad first impression. And in every business, first impressions count for a lot.
Our distance-learning courses will guide you through the most important aspects of writing at work, from creating good business letters to preparing readable reports. Threaded through all of them is the ABC of good writing: accuracy, brevity and clarity. They are designed for writers in business and government and have been written by published authors — Martin Cutts, Judy Brown and Sarah Carr.
Course 1: Be Clear, Be Brief, Be Human
Course 2: Writing in Plain Language: Using the Process Method
Course 3: Perfect Punctuation
These are detailed, high-quality courses that are fun to do but also need your serious commitment. You may find shorter and cheaper alternatives on the Web, but we believe that you won’t find better — or better-value — courses anywhere. To help you get a flavour of our courses and to see their quality, you can download a free chapter from Course 2 (0.5MB).
The series has been edited by Martin Cutts, author of the ‘Oxford Guide to Plain English’, published by Oxford University Press. He has been a leading figure in the plain-language field for more than 25 years.
You don’t need to take the courses in sequence, though we recommend Course 1 as a primer for each of the others.
For Courses 2 and 3, an extra module of tutor support is available.
Our courses use British English but we show the main conventions of US punctuation where appropriate. We spell words like realize, criticize and organize (all derived from the Greek zeta root) with a z, which is the first spelling given in Oxford dictionaries and is the older British form.
How to buy the courses
If you have a UK postal address, just click on the ‘buy’ button below each course description. This will enable you to pay by credit card through Paypal. If you prefer to pay by sterling cheque, please send it to us and state clearly what you wish to order. If you are buying for business use, you can send an official order and we can invoice you.
If you do not have a UK postal address, please email us stating what you wish to order, your full address and, if you are in the European Union, whether you are a private or business customer. We’ll then send you a price list. We have to do this because of the complicated VAT rules that apply in the European Union and the variable shipping rates. We can accept payment only by sterling cheque (or bank draft) and by credit card through Paypal.
Course 1
Writing in Plain Language: Be Clear, Be Brief, Be Human
by Martin Cutts
This course will give an immediate boost to your writing skills by showing you some of the main techniques of good, clear writing. Designed as a lively 160-slide Powerpoint presentation, the course will take you 1-2 hours to complete. You can go at your own speed, tackling short exercises on each topic along the way. You can use the course as often as you want, and move back and forth within it at the click of a button.
The course acts as a primer for all our other courses, so we recommend you take it before the others.
The course covers the essentials of good business writing in a relaxed and easy-to-use way, looking at:
- why good writing matters
- using everyday English
- getting the grammar right
- being brief
- breaking up long sentences
- punctuating well
- using active verbs
- using personal words
- avoiding pitfalls in your word choice
- avoiding clichés
- checking for errors.
The author, Martin Cutts, has led more than 1,500 writing-skills courses for business and government during a 25-year career in the plain-language field. He conceived and co-founded the Plain English Campaign in 1979, was a partner there until 1988, and has run Plain Language Commission since 1994. Working with a team of editors, he is responsible for the Clear English Standard accreditation scheme — which vets hundreds of documents every year for all kinds of organizations — and for the Winning Website scheme, which does the same job on websites.
Price: £30 inc. VAT and UK shipping.
Delivery: we’ll email the course to you. The file is about 9MB, so please email us if you want it on CD instead. The copy is specific to you and is marked with a unique identifier that shows it’s for your personal use only.
Course 2
Writing in Plain Language: Using the Process Method
by Sarah Carr
Module A
This course will give you all the skills you need to write powerful short documents, for example letters and emails. It shows you how to use the Process Method, our unique 5-stage approach to effective writing. You learn how to combine purpose, content, structure, style and revision techniques to produce elegant documents. You can work at your own pace, in your own time, taking the 12 chapters in easy stages. The detailed exercises and suggested answers that accompany every chapter allow you to practise your skills and build your confidence. The course will take you about 7 hours in total to complete.
Your course pack includes:
- an 8-page pre-course booklet
- ‘The Oxford Guide to Plain English’ by Martin Cutts (202 pages of tips and tactics), and
- a downloadable 88-page PDF workbook. To read the workbook on screen you’ll need Acrobat Reader, which is available free on the Web from www.adobe.com, but we recommend you print it out.
The workbook covers such topics as:
- planning your writing carefully and thoroughly
- using a clear structure that puts the main news early
- using a clear style with short sentences, active-voice verbs and personal pronouns
- using inclusive language
- achieving a human and positive tone
- analysing the clarity of short documents, and
- revising your writing.
The licence to use the PDF and print-out is for one user only.
The course is written by Sarah Carr, the author of ‘Tackling NHS Jargon: getting your message across’, (Radcliffe Medical Press 2002). Sarah now specializes in plain-English writing, editing and consultancy for the NHS and other organizations and is currently secretary of Plain Language Association International (PLAIN).
Price of Module A: £60 inc. VAT and UK shipping.
Delivery: we email you the PDF workbook and other emailable items (3MB). We can put them on CD if you prefer. The copy of the workbook is specific to you and is marked with a unique identifier that shows it’s for your personal use only. We post you the ‘Oxford Guide to Plain English’.
Module B (optional tutor support)
You can get an expert’s opinion on your progress by submitting up to 750 words of your own work (from Module A or elsewhere). We will examine it and give you detailed feedback so that you can be sure you’re making best use of your new skills. We strongly recommend you take Module B so that you get reinforcement of your learning in Module A and a check on your progress.
Module B gives full details of where to post or email your writing or editing examples.
Module B is available only if you take Module A, but you don’t have to buy it at the same time. You must use the tutor support by sending your examples of writing or editing within 6 weeks of receiving Module B.
Price of Module B: £60 inc. VAT and UK shipping.
Delivery: we email the module to you (0.25MB).
Course 3
Writing in Plain Language: Perfect Punctuation
by Judith Brown
Module A
There’s a big difference between ‘a pretty unscrupulous woman’ and ‘a pretty, unscrupulous woman’, and it’s all in a single comma. As a business writer you must punctuate well otherwise your work will be unclear and misunderstood.
By getting the punctuation right, you show you’re in command of your writing, you give it poise and expression, and you enable your reader to follow you without distraction and puzzlement.
This course explains the main British conventions on punctuation, though where appropriate we state the differences of US English. There are detailed examples on all the main punctuation marks — comma, full stop (US period), colon, semicolon, apostrophe, hyphen, dash etc — and on how to punctuate bullet-point lists. There are more than 100 exercises for you to test your learning — so that by the end of the course you should be a perfect punctuator.
You can go through the course as many times as you wish, and at your own speed. The 60-page PDF workbook should take you a total of 3—4 hours to complete.
Judy Brown is the author of ‘John Marco Allegro: the Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ (Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, USA, 2005) and is a highly experienced editor, having worked on many documents and websites that have gained the Clear English Standard.
Price: £50 inc. VAT and UK shipping.
Delivery: we email the workbook to you (1.5MB). To read the workbook on screen you’ll need Acrobat Reader, which is available free on the Web from www.adobe.com, but we recommend you print it out. The copy is specific to you and is marked with a unique identifier that shows it’s for your personal use only.
Module B (optional tutor support)
You can get an expert’s opinion on your progress by submitting up to 750 words of your own written work. We will examine it and give you detailed feedback so that you can be sure you know your colons from your semicolons. We strongly recommend you take Module B so that you get reinforcement of your learning in Module A and a check on your progress.
Module B gives full details of where to post or email your examples.
Module B is available only if you take Module A, but you don’t have to buy it at the same time. You must use the tutor support by sending your examples of writing within six weeks of receiving Module B.
Price: £50 inc. VAT.
Delivery: we email Module B to you (0.25MB).