Be part of history with our Melbourne writing courses
Want to join Victorian organisations already using plain language in their written communications? Find out how with our Melbourne writing courses.
In this article, we explain:
- how our courses will help you make history
- what our courses cover
- what prerequisites you need to attend our courses.
How will you help me make history?
You can make history by attending our writing courses in Melbourne: the home of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. The commission made history by pushing for governments, courts and businesses to use plain language. Other states followed Victoria’s example and started using plain language for business and government communications.
But why is this transition to plain language so monumental?
Plain language helps governments, businesses and courts to communicate more effectively by:
- writing shorter documents without losing content
- spending less time reading
- increasing reader comprehension
- improving accessibility
- boosting productivity
- reducing misunderstandings and mistakes
- decreasing time needed for negotiations.
This may seem like a list of impossible promises, but the research shows that plain language fulfils each of them.
What do your professional writing courses cover?
We take what you already know as a professional who writes for work and suggest small changes that help your readers:
- find the information they need
- understand the information they find
- act on the information they read.
To help readers find the information they need, we show you tweaks you can make to the structure of your writing. This involves putting the information the readers most need to know first.
We often find that writers write as they think and put information such as their key recommendations towards the end of a document. While this makes sense for the writer, it forces time-poor readers to read the entire document before reaching what they want to know.
To help readers understand and act on your writing, we provide advice about adjusting your document design and swapping words that are hard to understand for simple, everyday alternatives.
We recommend adjustments to document design such as including clear and consistent headings that allow readers to scan your writing. Also, including plenty of white space and splitting dense content into shorter paragraphs or bulleted lists prevents readers from feeling overwhelmed by blocks of text.
We have workshops for all the documents you commonly write at work, from reports, policies and procedures to newsletters and webpages. And all our courses align with Plain language – Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines (ISO 24495-1).
Turn writing at work into writing that works with our ISO-aligned plain language system.
Do your writing workshops have any prerequisites?
You don’t need any prerequisites to join most of our Melbourne writing courses. The only exceptions are our extension workshops and masterclasses. These workshops build on what we cover in our 1- and 2-day plain language workshops.
But our main prerequisite is that you come with an open mind, ready to see what our workshops can do for you, your business and your organisation.
Contact our friendly team today for help finding a business writing workshop that suits your needs and schedule. And you can train with us in person or online.
Many Victorian organisations have already joined the plain language movement and trained with us, including:
- WorkSafe Victoria
- Department of Justic and Community Safety
- Essential Services Commission.
Check our website for details about all the courses we offer, or contact us if you need help choosing the right workshop for you.
And to get you started, we have our free Australian Style Guide. This is the definitive guide for the most common style questions for professionals in Australia.
